


ZOO (TV Series) - Season 2

by Trawler



Category: Zoo (TV)
Genre: Animals, Bad Science, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mother Cell, Snark, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 11:11:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 62,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14307426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trawler/pseuds/Trawler
Summary: ‘ZOO – Season 2’ follows on immediately from the cliff-hanger ending of Season 1.The Beast Rebellion is in full swing, and humanity is on the brink of extinction. Jackson Oz and his team – French Secret Service Agent Chloe Tousignant, veterinary pathologist Mitchell Morgan, tour guide Abe Kenyatta and journalist Jamie Campbell – have been involved in researching a cure, but there are major setbacks.Jamie (and the leopard needed to manufacture the cure) were lost in a plane crash. Jackson and his team have located her on an island… but can they rescue her before she succumbs to yet another animal attack?And before they even reach the island, can they escape the horde of animals trying to stop them leaving D.C?Episode 1 – Out of the Frying Pan And Into The… Sewer?Jackson and the team take an unusual route to flee D.C. They’re safe from one group of animal attackers, but soon find themselves in conflict with another. Finally leaving the city behind, they take shelter for the night at a motel – and come into conflict with animals of a different kind.Meanwhile Jamie – trapped on an island with the now fully-grown leopard – finds that the local wildlife is gathering around the compound.





	1. Out Of The Frying Pan And Into The... Sewer?

**Author's Note:**

> A/N:-  
> I loved Season 1 of ZOO. I loved it so much that I watched it, then watched it again, then watched it a third time so that I could make notes and start planning my fanfic. I had no idea at the time if there would be a second season.  
> As it happened, there was a second. And it was… I won’t say terrible, but they killed off a character and made the animals ‘bigger and badder’, all at the expense of the plot. For me, ZOO was never about the animal attacks – it was about how people responded.  
> They made a third season. I haven’t seen it, and I think they’ve canned the show now. So – I present dubious science, entertainment and typical Mitch Morgan snark! I hope you enjoy.

_Four people sit in a grey Humvee. The driver, a massive black man called Abe, turns to smile at the petite blonde woman in the front seat. Chloe Tousignant returns his smile. In the seats behind them, veterinary pathologist Mitch Morgan and animal behaviour expert Jackson Oz settle back. It’s late in the day, and they have a long way to go._

_“Alright,” Mitch says. “So what’s the plan?”_

_“We drive to Delaware,” Chloe replies, turning in her seat. “There’s a boat that will take us to Jamie.”_

_“A_ boat?” _Mitch says, incredulous._

_“Yeah,” Jackson explains, “It’ll take eighteen hours or so, but… you know.” He shrugs. “Air travel.”_

_“Yeah.” Mitch drawls the word. “I’m OK not getting on a plane for a while.”_

_Jackson pushes up the left sleeve of his shirt to expose a ragged piece of tissue. Pulling it aside, he glances at the wound beneath – multiple punctures, green-brown and unhealthy – and winces._

_“Hey, what is that?” Mitch asks, pointing at the wound. “You alright?”_

_“Oh yeah, yeah. It’s nothing, just a dog bite. It’s fine.”_

_“That needs to be cleaned out. Doesn’t look too good.”_

_“Hold on,” Abe says, slowing the car. His wary brown eyes are riveted on the road ahead._

_Now everyone is staring at the mass pack of animals that completely block the intersection ahead. In the distance, they can just see the familiar white shape of the Capitol Building, but their attention is on the snarling, roaring, spitting, hissing beasts._

_“What the hell?” Chloe says._

_“This doesn’t look too good either,” Mitch says with typical black humour._

_“Any ideas?” Abe says. “I’m open to suggestions.”_

_As one, the animals charge._

*****

“Here’s an idea – get us the hell out of here!” Mitch shouted, feet peddling as he tried to push himself back in his seat. He clutched the overhead hand hold. 

Abe was already reacting. He threw the big Humvee into reverse and stood on the gas, glancing frantically over his shoulder to make sure that he didn’t hit anything. The combined tumult of hooves, roars and shrieks was deafening, and only getting louder. 

Seconds later they reached another intersection. Abe reversed through it, slammed on the brakes and powered the car into drive. Chloe clutched at the dashboard, her eyes wide with terror. Sweating, Abe put his foot to the floor and spun the wheel, turning into another road. The superpack sped after them.

“Take another left here,” Jackson commanded, gripping the seat in front of him. Tyres screeched as Abe obeyed. As Jackson gave a string of directions the sound of the pack grew more distant with every passing minute. 

“Where are we going?” Chloe asked as she sat back, drawing her trembling hands into her lap. She wasn’t relaxed – none of them were relaxed – but she appeared to have come out of high alert.

“Another way out of the city,” Jackson explained. 

A lumbering shape ahead made Abe stamp the breaks again. The tyres screamed. They all jerked forward, seatbelts cutting into their torsos. 

A trio of rhinos blocked the road. They pawed at the tarmac and snorted.

Abe glanced in the rear view mirror at the same time that Chloe checked the side mirror. 

“Guys, we have a problem,” she said. 

Mitch and Jackson turned to look through the rear window. The road behind was blocked by a pride of six fully grown male lions, all roaring and showing their teeth. 

“I never got to tell Jamie I love her,” Mitch muttered, drawing a hand over his stubble.

“You can still tell her,” Jackson said, unbuckling his seat belt. “But you’ll have to go through the sewer to do it.” He began to push the door open. 

“Are you crazy?” Mitch said, grabbing his arm. “If you go out there they’ll kill you! Not to mention your crazy ‘let’s walk through the stinking sewer of D.C’ idea!”

The lions prowled closer, all snarling and displaying their teeth. The male on point roared. The three rhinos lowered their heads and advanced. 

“There is no time to discuss this!” Chloe yelled, unsnapping her seat belt. “There is no other way!” She pushed open her door and scrambled out, seizing her overnight bag from the top of the Humvee. A second later Jackson followed her.

“Can’t we, oh, I don’t know, _go into a damned building?_ ” Mitch called, head turning as he looked between the lions and the rhinos. 

“And draw all these animals down upon the tenants?” Abe said, pressing the release button on his seatbelt. “Much as I dislike the idea of wading through the sewers, my conscience could not rest easy if I allowed others to be harmed to ensure my safety.” Then he, too, was climbing out of the car. 

“Well that’s just swell,” Mitch grumbled, ditching his seatbelt and exiting the Humvee. “We all get to be sewer rats, but by gosh Abe’s conscience is salved.” 

Outside, the lion’s snarls grew more infuriated. As Mitch grabbed his bag and joined the others he saw Abe working on the nearest manhole cover, great muscles in his arms bulging as he strained to lift the heavy metal. They were out of sight of the rhinos, but the lions paused in their advance, trying to work out what they were doing. 

“Come on, come on, come on!” Mitch urged, still looking around. “Those lions are going to figure this out any second now!”

“You could always lend a hand!” Abe gasped. A second later he’d managed to haul the cover onto the sidewalk. 

Jackson wasted no time. He dumped his bag and started climbing down the metal ladder. Chloe followed, throwing Mitch an impatient ‘suck it up’ look. He rolled his eyes, shrugged, and lowered himself over the edge.

The lead lion let out an enraged snarl and charged, the others following suit. The rhinos bellowed and broke into a gallop.

“Oh dear Lord,” Abe moaned. He threw the bags down the manhole and almost jumped into it himself. It was a tight fit and for a second he was terrified he’d get stuck, but he felt hands pulling at his legs. 

“Pull harder!” he yelled, reaching for the heavy metal cover. He hauled it closer. Another sharp tug and he was below street level. He manhandled the cover into place a second before a lion thudded onto it, sending jarring pain down his arms. But their roars were abruptly cut off.

So was the light.

*****

Seconds later three pinpricks of light broke the darkness – Mitch, Jackson and Chloe all had their cell phones out and were working the flashlight app. The tiny specks barely broke the gloom, but at least they could see where they were putting their feet.

And where they were putting their feet was… 

“If we get out of this alive, remind me to kill you,” Mitch grumbled at Jackson, his forearm over his mouth. “Though if you’re lucky I’ll just throw up all over you.”

“What, you never waded through a stinking sewer before?” Jackson joked, though his expression was pained. 

“One of you had better know where we are going,” Chloe sniped. “Or I’m with Mitch on this one.”

“Hey… when have I ever led you wrong?” Jackson, too, put his arm over his mouth and nose.

The other three exchanged a significant look.

“Ray Endicott,” they said in unison. 

“He got us to Africa.” Jackson was defensive. 

“And then he got eaten by a leopard,” Abe growled. “A fate I am not keen to emulate. So lead us, Rafiki, and by all that’s holy you’d better know where you are going.”

“All right, all right… look, the city’s built on a grid system. So are the sewers. If we head toward the edge of the city we can come out in the suburbs.”

Something squeaked in the darkness. Because of the echoing nature of the tunnels it was impossible to tell how far away it had come from, or from which direction.

“Rats,” Chloe said. “You get rats in sewers.”

*****

They wasted no more time. Bags over shoulders, they waded through the effluent; at times the tunnels were wide enough to accommodate narrow ledges, but those times were few and far between.

“This is no worse than tracking an animal through the wilderness,” Jackson muttered to himself. “All this… it’s just scat.”

“Yup, keep telling yourself that,” Mitch commented. “Whichever way you look at it, we’re walking through poop.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Science Man.” Chloe’s tone was acerbic. 

“Quiet!” Abe hissed, holding up a hand. “Can you hear that?”

“All I can hear is Mitch whining like a little girl,” Jackson grumbled. But they all fell silent and listened.

A squeak, somewhere in the gloom. Then another. And another. 

“Do you think the rats here have mutated?” Chloe asked, eyes wide and wild as she waved her light beam over the tunnel. “Like the ones we met before?”

“I say let’s not hang around to find out,” Mitch advised. “You think we’re far enough away from that superpack yet?”

“Impossible to tell,” Jackson replied. “All predators have keen hearing, eyesight or smell, but we’re in the middle of Washington D.C. The pollution might hide our trail. If they were looking specifically for us.”

Chloe uttered something in French. “We stink of human waste! How can they not track us?”

The squeaks turned into chitters. A sleek brown rat scuttled onto the ledge opposite, stopping deliberately in their light, sitting on its haunches as it watched them. It was joined by a second, third and fourth, until the ledge was brimming with rats. 

“Yeah, right now I’d say that question was moot,” Mitch said, looking around for the nearest exit.

“Here,” Jackson said, standing at the bottom of another ladder. “Abe?”

The big man squeezed past the others. It was a tight fit.

“Get any closer and you can take me out for dinner,” Mitch grinned.

“Don’t you ever shut _up?”_

“Sometimes I’m asleep.”

Abe shook his head and started climbing the ladder. The rats, finally reaching critical mass, pushed each other into the moving stream of sewage and started swimming across. 

“Got that manhole cover open yet?” Jackson asked. “Anytime now would be great…”

_“You_ should try moving it!” Abe called down. He’d braced his hands on the metal and was pushing with all his might. 

Another few seconds and the rats would reach the humans’ ledge. Chloe was already halfway up the ladder, underneath Abe, while Mitch and Jackson crowded beneath her.

Abe let out of great yell of effort and suddenly fading daylight filtered in from overhead. He tried to climb through… and then stopped.

“I’m stuck!” was the muffled cry from above.

Chloe half-slithered, half-fell down the ladder, landing awkwardly, to allow Jackson space to climb. He braced his shoulders underneath Abe’s backside and heaved. 

“When was the last time you went on a diet?” he called.

“I happen to have very large bones! Now push harder!”

“If I push any harder I’m gonna break my damned back!”

“So we’ll carry your crippled ass out of the sewer,” Mitch said. “What we can’t do is carry your half-eaten ass out!”

Jackson gave an almighty push, teeth barred in a snarl of effort. Abe popped out of the manhole like a cork from a bottle. Jackson lost his precarious balance and would have fallen if Chloe, a few rungs up the ladder, hadn’t braced him.

The first rats made it to the other ledge and scurried up. Mitch lashed out at them, trying to knock them off with his bag. The ones he hit squealed and went flying, making those behind more cautious. 

“That’s right!” Mitch yelled. “I cut your little buddies in med school, and I’d do it again!”

Abe, now topside, turned to haul Jackson out. Chloe shot up the ladder with Mitch on her heels. Unrestrained, the rats surged after them, squealing and chittering wildly. Mitch collapsed onto the asphalt, feeling sharp claws scratching at his jeans, before Abe dropped the heavy metal cover. 

Mitch rolled and kicked at the few rats attacking him, but seeing they lacked the backup of the horde, they dropped off and scurried away. Mitch jumped to his feet, glasses and hair askew.

“I did your momma too!” he yelled at the retreating rats. 

“You _do_ remember what those rat mommas were like, don’t you?” Jackson said, hands on hips. 

“I remember your description.” Mitch straightened his glasses, ran a hand through his hair. “Bet there’s good eating on one of those. Wonder how many spices the Colonel would have to use.” 

*****

They found a replacement for the Humvee they’d lost, a big navy-coloured 4x4. Abe broke the window with a brick, killed the alarm and hotwired the vehicle. A minute later they were driving through the deserted streets of D.C. 

“Did any of those rats scratch or bite your skin?” Jackson asked Mitch once they were safely underway. 

“Yeah. Picked up a couple scratches.” He twitched the hem of one pants leg, revealing several long red marks. 

“We’ll need to clean those out the first chance we get. Given where we’ve just been, it’s likely they’ll become infected.”

“Just like that dog bite?”

“It’s nothing,” Jackson reiterated. 

“Fine, you want to get an infection, be my guest.” Mitch threw his hands up and leaned back. 

“The man does have some medical training, Rafiki,” Abe rumbled from the driver’s seat. 

“All right, all right, maybe it does need looking at. I’ll get it sorted when we stop for gas.”

*****

The 4x4 sped away from the city. Some distance behind them, a lone wolf – a huge grey-brown timber wolf – raised his nose from the tarmac, orange eyes burning as he stared after the vehicle. He threw his head back and howled.

A second wolf joined him, smaller, sleeker. His mate. She nuzzled her alpha. More wolves closed in behind them, all familiarising themselves with the human smell.

The big male uttered a single growling bark and broke into a run. One by one the pack followed, spreading out into a long line of hungry wolves that ate the miles with an easy, loping gait. The hunt was on.

*****

The stop for gas actually turned out to be a stop for the night. It was only a two hour drive to Delaware, but it had been late in the day when Chloe had completed the travel arrangements and they were finally ready to leave D.C. Add to that the time they’d spent tramping through the sewers, and the day was gone before they’d driven far out of the city. 

Jackson directed them to a combination motel/diner. There was a gas station on the other side of the road, so Abe refilled the 4x4 while the others paid for rooms. 

“Sorry, Chloe,” Mitch said as the receptionist – a tough old guy in his late sixties – handed them room keys. “I know you’re used to sharing with Jamie.” His face twisted, as if it hurt to say her name. “At least I don’t snore.”

“That’s a fib,” Jackson said as they left the lobby. “You should hear him.” He patted Mitch none-too-gently on the shoulder. “Sounds like a buzz saw.” He headed off in front of them.

“Why don’t you go on ahead?” Mitch said, looking at the floor. “I, uh, I got a little something in my eye.”

“I know you miss Jamie,” Chloe said, touching his arm. “But we will do everything in our power to find her. I promise you.”

Mitch nodded, not meeting her eyes.

*****

After they all took an extended shower and a change of clothes Abe, Chloe and Jackson met in the diner next to the motel. Mitch claimed he had a headache but would probably join them later. He wasn’t fooling anyone – they all knew he planned to make a call to Jamie’s borrowed satellite phone. There was no reason for his mild deception, but they all respected his need for privacy.

Chloe and Abe picked a table near the rear of the diner, not wishing to attract too much attention – difficult when Abe was such a big man. Jackson ordered food at the bar and returned carrying four beer bottles.

“I do not like the crowd in here tonight,” Abe murmured, taking the proffered beer. “There is a restless energy to them. People with too much energy look for trouble, and they generally find it.”

“I agree,” Chloe nodded. “These men and women look as if they have been drinking for many hours. I say we eat our food and go back to the motel.”

Jackson dropped into his seat and took a healthy swig of beer, using the movement to look around the room. His business was animal behaviour and that included humans; to his experienced eye, the men and women in this room – a mix of denim-wearing, thick-bearded men and peroxide-blonde bar gals – were one drink away from violence. There was a clump of them around the pool table, and they played with the quiet, single-minded intensity that signified money had been laid down. Big money.

“Let’s just eat our food and go.”

*****

Back in the motel, Mitch dropped onto the single bed and dialled a number on his cell. On the other end of the line the sat phone rang and rang. Mitch closed his eyes and put his hand over them.

“Come on,” he muttered. “Please, Jamie, please pick up…”

“I really hope this is Mitchell Morgan, because if you try and sell me life insurance I’m hanging up right now.”

“Don’t hang up!” Mitch blurted. Then he winced, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ah, yeah. It’s Mitch.”

“I’m so glad you called!” 

Her voice was unsteady. He pictured her, alone on an island in the middle of nowhere with a crazy old guy who didn’t speak English, recovering from what had to have been terrible injuries from that damned plane crash. They hadn’t spoken about it, but there was no way she could have got out of it unscathed. They all had scars. 

“So, uh… how you doing?” he asked. He’d been dying to speak to her all day, to hear her voice, and now the moment was here he’d drawn a total blank on what to say. “That guy, what’s his name? He treating you OK?”

“He’s called Aippaq.” She laughed, stumbling over the name. “And yeah, he’s treating me just fine. He saved my life, Mitch.”

“He, uh…” Mitch rubbed the back of his neck. “He hasn’t tried to…” He sucked air through his teeth, grimaced. “I mean has he… sheesh, this is awkward…”

“Are you asking what I think you’re asking?” He heard humour now, but it was tinged with outrage. 

“I don’t even know what I’m asking.” But they both knew. One guy, locked in a compound with one good looking woman. Yeah, they both knew. “Look, just forget I said anything…”

“Aippaq is a good man. He’s looking after me. More importantly, he’s looking after Irniq.” 

“Irniq…”

“The leopard cub, Mitch…”

“He named it?”

“ _It_ is a _he,_ and yeah, he named him. He raised that little guy. Irniq’s all grown up now. So, uh… when you stopping by?”

“Soon,” Mitch said. “Real soon. We had a little trouble getting out of D.C. and we’ve stopped overnight. Chloe says we’re catching a boat tomorrow, so if all goes well we should reach you… really, really late at night.”

“I can’t wait! I really missed you guys!”

He hoped he hadn’t misheard the breathless excitement in her voice.

“We, uh… we missed you, too. _I_ missed you.” He dragged his hand over his face. “Jamie, I thought you were dead…” His voice cracked. He couldn’t say anything else.

Neither of them spoke for a moment, though he thought he heard sniffing on the other end of the line. 

“Just get here soon, OK?” Jamie said eventually. 

“I will,” he rasped. “I promise, I will.”

*****

The wolves ran through the night, loping easily along the tarmac. The full, round moon provided all the light they needed to see. Besides, the human scent trail was the real pull.

The lights of the motel were a glittering lure. Just a few miles away now.

*****

“How’s the headache?” Jackson asked when Mitch joined them again.

“Headachy. But the ache in my belly’s worse. Man needs to eat, that kinda thing.” He dropped into the empty seat, peering at Jackson’ face. “You’re sweating… but it’s not hot in here. You get that dog bite looked at yet?”

Jackson touched his arm, self-conscious. “It’s fine,” he said.

“Yeah? You cleaned it out with disinfectant? Found a pharmacist to give you antibiotics?”

“What about _your_ scratches?”

“Washed ‘em out and sprinkled them with iodine.”

“You carry iodine around with you?”

“Got a little first aid kit, yup. But I think your dog bite went beyond the first aid kit, oh, about ten hours ago.”

“We will get you medical attention when we reach Delaware,” Chloe said, looking away from her careful perusal of the bar patrons. “Until then, Jackson, try to keep it clean and covered. There are no antibiotics here.”

“But we got some beer!” Mitch said, picking his up and clinking it against Jackson’s. 

“That we do,” the other man laughed.

“Finish your drinks quickly,” Chloe said. “I do not trust the atmosphere in this place.”

A second later a heavy-set man stumbled across to them. He wore a tight black T-shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal numerous tattoos, and a worn, sleeveless denim jacket. His jeans were torn and ripped. A full beard covered the lower half of his face, a stark contrast to the lack of hair on the top of his head.

“Hey, darlin’,” he rumbled, leering at Chloe. “I put some music on the jukebox. Come and dance with me.”

“No thank you,” Chloe replied, her large brown eyes widening like a deer scenting danger.

“Come on,” Beard Man cajoled. “I put a whole buck in that jukebox. One little dance.”

“I think the lady said ‘no thank you,’” Mitch said, getting slowly to his feet. “I don’t know if they taught you what that means in redneck school, but in civilised society it generally means ‘no’. That’s spelled n-o.”

“I think you better get outta my face,” Beard Man growled, “before I do something you’ll regret.” He loomed nearly a whole head taller than Mitch.

“There is no reason this has to end in violence,” Abe announced as he and Jackson stood. Abe found that he was the same height as Beard Man, not a common experience.

“Well, sure there isn’t. You and your little pet monkey here just need to stand the hell down.”

“I think it’s time we left, right?” Jackson tried to intercede, putting one hand on Abe’s arm and the other on Beard Man’s.

“Get your damned hand off me!” he yelled.

“Hey, just calm down –”

Beard Man swung a punch that caught Jackson square on the jaw. He dropped like a stone. Abe leapt forward and tried to restrain the man but he was ready for him – he caught Abe in a wrestler’s grip, and the two set their strength against each other.

The crowd turned ugly. As the other patrons closed in Mitch and Chloe got Jackson upright, an arm slung over their shoulders. His head lolled onto his chest. He was out cold. 

“One of these days your tongue is going to get us into some _real_ trouble!” Chloe spat, manhandling Jackson toward the door. They were forced to stop as several big, hairy men blocked the way.

Then the bar was filled with angry and terrified screams. Mitch and Chloe looked around, trying to work out what was happening – and then Mitch spotted a flash of fur.

“Wolves!” he yelled, trying to steer Jackson to the door again.

“We have to get out of here!” Chloe shouted. “Abe! Abe!” 

They were jostled from all directions as they struggled to leave. Men and women dropped, their bodies worried by powerful jaws before they were even dead. 

A huge wolf barred their way, orange eyes flaming. Its lips were fully drawn back from its teeth as it snarled.

_“Mon Dieu!”_ Chloe cried, terrified.

And then Beard Man was there, bashing through the crowd with an unconscious, denim-clad man. He barrelled the panicking people aside and hurled Denim Man at the wolf. The animal ducked out of the way, then turned to leap on Beard Man.

“We have to get to the car and go!” Abe called, pushing his way toward them. 

“I have to get my bag!” Mitch yelled back.

“There is no time for that!”

“I have to make time! I left my cell phone back in my room!”

“We _all_ have cell phones, Mitch!”

Chloe made an unladylike sound as they hauled Jackson out of the diner. She understood – it was his lifeline to Jamie. 

“Let him go back for his phone! Just help me get Jackson into the car!”

Outside, in the motel / diner’s parking lot, it was chaos. Men and women ran screaming into the night, every one pursued by a wolf. The escapees stared in horror as first one, then another, then another, was brought down.

“Mother Nature, everyone,” Mitch said, handing Jackson off to Abe. “See ya soon, kids.”

Abe manhandled Jackson to the car while Chloe fumbled with the keys. As they worked a wolf watched them, head down, hackles raised. Abe propped Jackson in the back seat while Chloe gunned the engine.

A second wolf appeared. Then a third. A fourth.

“I don’t think they are going to let us leave,” Chloe whispered.

“I don’t think we are going to give them a choice,” Abe replied. “Put your foot down, Chloe, and don’t stop until we’re outside Mitch’s door.”

“How many points will I get on my license for hitting a wolf?” she asked.

*****

Mitch made it back to the room he would have been sharing with Chloe. He kept looking over his shoulder as he unlocked the door. Once inside he snatched up his cell, shoved it into his pants pocket, and grabbed their bags. Neither of them had done much in the way of unpacking. Chloe would have to leave her cosmetics behind, but he was sure she could go without for a few days.

He left the room behind and peered out into the night, looking for the car. The unforgiving sodium lights revealed more than he wanted to see. Lots of still bodies on the tarmac, one or more wolves standing over each. Where was the damned car?

A snarl in front of him snapped his attention back. He was being watched by a wolf, a huge grey-black animal with luminous orange eyes. 

“Oh, hey, Fido,” he muttered, backing away. “How you doing? Good boy.”

The wolf paced slowly toward him, growling.

“Come on now, you don’t want a piece of Mitch,” he said, looking for an escape. He might make it back into his room – might – but then he’d be trapped. “I’m sure I don’t taste very nice…”

The shriek of tyres made his head whip around. The big wolf got out of the way just in time; the car squealed to a halt a few feet away from Mitch.

“Get in!” Abe yelled as he tumbled out of the passenger side. “I will get the remaining bags!”

For once Mitch didn’t argue. He pulled open the rear passenger door and climbed up behind Jackson. The man was still out for the count.

Abe got through the motel door by the simple expedient of barging it down, his six feet seven inch frame no match for the flimsy plywood. He grabbed the two bags, ducked out of the room and was back in the car in seconds.

“Go!” he yelled to Chloe, slamming the door shut behind him.

Chloe put her foot down and drove.

*****

It was a long time before any of them relaxed enough to make conversation.

“I would like to make the observation that none of what just happened was my fault,” Mitch said, holding up a finger.

“It never is.” Chloe’s voice was taut, her attention riveted on the dark road ahead. 

“Much as it pains me to admit it, I believe Mitch is correct,” Abe said. “If the men and women in the bar hadn’t already been brawling, we might not have been able to use the confusion to escape.”

Jackson stirred, eyelids fluttering. He groaned and put a hand to his jaw.

“Easy, Rafiki,” Abe said, looking over his shoulder into the back seat.

“Wow, what horse kicked me in the face?” he mumbled. “That man should have been a boxer.”

“You’re still looking pretty sweaty,” Mitch observed. He held the back of his hand to Jackson’s forehead. “You’re burning up. I think you’ve got a fever.”

“I’m fine,” Jackson rasped.

“Were you born with a hero complex, or did it just naturally develop when you rescued Chloe from the lions?”

“Never wanted to be a hero,” Jackson mumbled.

“Stop it!” Chloe called. “We will be in Delaware soon! Then maybe I can get a little peace!”

*****

But when they finally rolled up at the edge of Delaware, things were very wrong.

“I’m not sure how it work in the States,” Chloe said as she let the car idle, “but I don’t think blockading a city is the normal way to run things.”

“You would be one hundred per cent right there,” Mitch said, leaning forward between the gap in the two front seats. “There’s got to be hundreds of vehicles there. Cars, trucks…”

“The only question we need to ask right now is how do we get through?” Abe said.

“Perhaps if we ask them very nicely, they will let us in,” Chloe said.

On the road behind them – not very far behind – a single wolf’s voice rose in a howl. It was joined by a second, third, fourth, until there were too many to count individually. 

Chloe put her foot down. The car sped forward.

*****

Jamie was bored. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so bored. There were books to read, but they were all in a foreign language; she’d flunked Spanish. There was a TV, but if she watched any more of that her brains were going to trickle out through her ears.

The only high point in her day had been talking to Mitch. She missed him so badly it was like a physical pain in her chest. Was she in love with him? She couldn’t remember feeling this strongly about Ethan, or any of the guys she’d dated before him.

Maybe it was just the shock of their separation that made her desperate to see him again. But… she didn’t feel this way about Jackson or Abe. Abe was a nice guy – a _real_ nice guy – but after what he’d told her about his little brothers, she knew he saw her more as family than anything else. And Jackson… well, he hadn’t exactly been Mr. Supportive after Evan Lee Hartley had run her off the road. Ben Schaffer – the fake FBI agent – had been kind to her, gentle, and coaxed her into remembering the details she’d needed to track Hartley down.

And then she’d shot him. If she ever got back to civilisation, would she be punished for it? Thrown in jail and left to rot?

She made herself think about Mitch again. It sure beat the hell out of thinking about murder. 

She curled up on the sofa and tried to remember the sat phone conversation. The way Mitch’s voice sounded, the things he’d said – and, most important of all, the things he hadn’t said. The silent words that had been hidden between the spoken ones.

Aippaq was talking to her. She dragged her mind back to the present, back to the guy who’d saved her life. He was pointing out the window and smiling.

“Outside?” she asked. “That’s the word for outside, right? And the word for leopard. Oh! You’re going to feed Irniq!”

He nodded vigorously, smiling and nodding as she made the connection.

“I know you don’t understand what I’m saying, but be careful,” she told him. “I know those animals can’t get you, but… just be careful, OK?”

He seemed to understand her tone, if not her words. This time his nod was solemn.

*****

Beyond the fence, many pairs of eyes watched the sturdy wooden house. 

A single animal lumbered forward, heavy, wedge-shaped muzzle sniffing the ground. The huge brown bear set his claws to the half-frozen earth and dug. 

Around and behind him, the wolves began to howl.


	2. A Whale Of A Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team reach the safety of Delaware and meet with one of Chloe’s contacts. They take a boat out to Jamie’s island. All seems to be going well until the boat is capsized by a whale, tossing all of its inhabitants into the sea. They are washed up in different locations – Jackson with Mitch, and Chloe with Abe.  
> Meanwhile Jamie watches as slowly – inexorably – a bear begins to dig a tunnel beneath the fence separating her from the wilderness. She and her host seem powerless to stop it; every time he goes outside, he’s attacked by birds of prey who drive him back inside the house.

Chloe kept her foot down, pushing the car closer and closer to the blockade. Her eyes were wide and staring.

“Slow down, Chloe,” Abe begged. “You are going to get us killed!”

“What he said!” Mitch seconded from the back.

The closer they got to the blockade the more they could see – the trailers, vans, trucks and cars were lit up like a Fourth of July parade. There was even a fire truck; anything that would block the road into town. 

And standing in front of that wall of vehicles was another wall, this time of humanity. Hard-faced men and women carrying shotguns. 

At the last moment Chloe stamped on the brake and swung the wheel around, turning the 4x4 into a screaming sideways stop. She left the engine running and jumped out, hands raised as she strode toward the blockade.

“My name is Chloe Tousignant!” she called. “We are expected!”

“You rock up here and just expect us to let you through?” one man called.

In the car, Mitch went to open the door. Turning, Abe put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“Wait in the car,” he said. “We may need to make a hasty getaway.”

“Getaway? Getaway where?”

“Someplace where the wolves are not!”

“We are being chased by wolves!” Chloe was shouting. “Look, my contact is Marcel Laporte, he is with the _Service Canadian du renseignement de sécuritié_ – the Secret Security Intelligence Service!” 

“Chloe?” a light, melodic voice called from the back of the blockade. “Chloe Tousignant?” 

“Marcel!”

A small, neat man pushed his way through the crowd, bursting out between two much larger men. Despite the rough and ready appearance of those around him, he still wore a charcoal-grey suit. 

“Let these people through,” Laporte ordered, his French accent as crisp as Chloe’s. “You, you –” he pointed at several burly men, “stand by to repel the wolves. Tranquilisers, _s’il vous plait!_ We are not savages!”

A flurry of movement broke the shadows as people scurried to obey him. Just as the first wolves galloped into sight a throaty tumble of engines signalled a break in the blockade.

Chloe leapt back into the 4x4, slamming the door behind her.

“How do you do that?” Mitch asked as she edged the car forward. 

The crack of tranquilisers echoed through the air. The wolves, still some distance away, dropped. The others scattered.

“Do what?” she snapped, steering a skilful path through both the people and the blockade.

“Scream at people and get them to do stuff.”

“It is a particular skill French women have!” she shot back. “Now shut up and let me concentrate!”

*****

Chloe stopped the car on the other side of the blockade. The city streets were deserted – every vehicle, it seemed, was being used to maintain the blockade.

“This’ll stop the bigger animals getting in,” Mitch said as they got out. “For a while, at least. But what about all the cats and dogs that were already here? What about all the birds, and the rats, and the gerbils and pigeons and chickens?”

“Chickens?” Abe snorted.

“People keep chickens as pets.” Mitch was defensive. “I saw it on the Discovery Channel, so it must be true.”

“Ahh… I would suggest we stay away from meat dishes until we leave town,” Abe laughed. He ducked his head inside the car. “How are you doing, Rafiki?”

Jackson looked terrible. His skin was pale and clammy, his eyes huge and round in his head. His hair was slick against his forehead.

“I think I’m…” He leaned out of the car and vomited. Abe stepped back just in time. “…sick,” he finished.

Chloe turned at the retching noise. She made a face, but she still hurried around the car to him.

Another car idled toward them. Laporte leaned out of the passenger window.

“Marcel!” The two embraced, dropping Continental kisses on each other’s cheeks. Her smile seemed to drain some of the tension from her face. “What is going on here? This is worse than D.C!”

“The same as is happening everywhere – the animals are out of control!” 

“Chloe?” Jackson mumbled, using the car door to pull himself upright. “You going to introduce us?”

“There will be time for niceties later, Monsieur…?”

“Oz. Jackson Oz.”

“Mr. Oz. Forgive me saying, but you do not look well. Would you like a doctor?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Jackson said, and passed out. 

*****

Laporte recommended a hotel. Chloe met Mitch in the bar. Jackson and Abe were still at the ER.

“Look,” Mitch said as soon as Laporte entered the room, “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but we’ve got a boat to catch –”

“I am aware of your needs,” Laporte replied. “It is I who arranged your boat. It will not depart until you are ready. Besides, we must wait for a favourable tide.”

“Just for the record,” Mitch said, sinking low in his seat, “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”

“Given the nature of your journey so far, I am not surprised.”

Jackson and Abe entered the bar. Seeing them, Chloe raised her hand, a ready smile lighting her face. They wandered over and sat.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Doc cleaned out the dog bite,” Jackson replied, touching his arm. He pulled his sleeve up to reveal a clean, fresh bandage. “Gave me a shot and a course of antibiotics.” 

“You are feeling better?”

“I’m not throwing up.” Jackson’s smile was faint, but it was there. “That’s a good start, right?”

“I have booked you rooms here for the remainder of the night,” Laporte explained. “You should eat – if you can,” he added, looking at Jackson, “and grab a few hours’ sleep.”

“Just, uh, just when is the boat going?” Mitch asked.

“When the tide turns. At dawn, Mr. Morgan.”

“How about a beer?” Mitch slumped in his seat. 

*****

Aippaq tramped back into the house, his face uncharacteristically grim. Jamie switched the TV off and jumped to her feet.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Aippaq went to the window, beckoning her to follow. She peered through the glass. It was utterly dark outside; there wasn’t another inhabited house on the island. 

Aippaq pulled a small square of plastic from his pocket and pressed a button. Floodlights filled the compound with sterile white light. He stomped out of the room.

“Oh my god, is that a _bear?_ ” Jamie asked, shielding her eyes from the momentary blinding glare. “And is that bear trying to… dig… under the fence…?”

When Aippaq returned he was carrying a shotgun. He stumped out into the yard. Jamie watched, lungs tight, as the old man set the gun to his shoulder and sighted.

A massive bird, wings outstretched, flew at him. Aippaq yelled as he tried to cover his face. 

“Is that… is that an _eagle?”_ Jamie exclaimed, clutching at the neckline of her borrowed, five-sizes-too-large jumper. 

A second bird joined the first, both going for Aippaq’s face. The man was no fool – he scurried back into the house, slamming the door behind him just as an eagle launched into a dive-bomb attack. The bird pulled out at the last second, screeching with anger.

“You’re hurt!” Jamie rushed over to him. He was already dabbing a rag at deep scratches on his face. He waved her away. 

She ducked into the kitchen and rummaged around in the cupboards, finally finding what she was looking for – a medical kit. She went back into the living room to find Aippaq shrugging out of his coat.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do about the bear,” she said, face stern, “but we can do something about those scratches.” She pointed to the sofa. “Sit your keister, meister.” 

Aippaq gave a hefty sigh that needed no translation – _women!_ ¬ – and sat. 

“Right,” Jamie muttered, opening the kit. “I don’t know where you are right now, Mitch, but you’d better get here – fast.”

*****

“I thought dawn was supposed to be – well, lighter than this?”

“This is false dawn,” Jackson told Mitch as they walked up the boarding ramp. “The sun will rise any minute now.”

“And aren’t you just fresh and perky today?” 

“You can thank the antibiotics and a couple hours sleep.”

“Plus, he was not drinking until long after the rest of us had gone to bed,” Abe laughed, clapping Mitch on the back.

“Yeah, could you maybe, I don’t know, whisper?”

“The sea is no place to have a hangover,” Chloe remarked. 

Mitch stopped and held his hands out. “And yet, here we are.”

“I’ll try not to laugh too much while you are throwing up over the side of the boat.” She slipped an arm around his shoulders, gave him a brief, faux-friendly hug, and boarded.

“Everyone’s a comedian,” Mitch grumbled. “Let’s see you laugh after I puke on your shoes.” 

*****

Marcel Laporte was already waiting for them when they were all aboard. He was dressed as they were, in heavy coats and thick scarves. Several men in bright yellow slickers pulled up the boarding ramp.

“Good morning,” he greeted them. “I am glad to see you are, what is the expression? ‘Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?’”

“Can I kill him?” Mitch groused, leaning with his elbows against the railing. “Just a little bit?”

“Ah, Monsieur Morgan, I am informed you imbibed rather freely of the bar tab I set up for you.”

“Looks like I’m paying the price now.” He covered his mouth. 

*****

Jamie watched the bear with pathological intensity. Aippaq tried to get her to come away from the window. There was no way she could do that. So she sat through the long, silent stretch of night, occasionally dozing and then jerking into wakefulness. 

Aippaq went to bed. At first she couldn’t understand how he could be so casual about the bear’s presence, especially not after those two birds or… eagles or… whatever the hell they were had attacked him. Then she watched the bear some more.

The earth was frozen. The bear would spend a few minutes scrabbling at the soil, making the hole a little wider, and then rest. The morbid part of her mind knew that the digging would go quicker if the wolves helped out, but although she’d heard their howls she hadn’t seen them since her escape attempt weeks before. 

But could the wolves’ claws even make a difference on the packed earth? It was taking the bear time and effort. His claws were bigger, stronger.

“Don’t question why the animals _aren’t_ banding together to eat you,” she mumbled. 

When the first red stains of dawn crept across the horizon she heard Aippaq rising, then heard his sure tread as he moved about the house. A few minutes later he draped a blanket around her shoulders and brought her a hot, steaming cup of coffee. She accepted it with thanks.

He turned the floodlights off. The bear was still there. The hole was getting bigger. 

So she watched. And she waited. 

*****

“There we go,” Jackson said, holding Mitch’s shoulders as he hung over the side of the boat. His tone wasn’t as sympathetic as it could be. “Just let it all come out.”

“Is Chloe laughing?” Mitch gasped. “I’m sure I can hear her laughing. Annoying _and_ French, such a winning combination.”

“How do you have any friends?” Jackson asked.

“Are we friends?”

“Come on… if you were a lady I’d be holding your hair out of your face.”

The boat had been at sea for about ten hours now. It was a lovely day, wall to wall blue sky, playful white crests to the waves. 

“I am not laughing now,” Chloe said, wandering over to the two men. Her face was serious, her gaze turned to the sky. “I am watching those birds.”

Mitch straightened, his face pale, his hair mussed. Jackson shielded his eyes and looked up. 

“That’s a pretty big flock of gulls,” he said. “This is a fishing vessel, right? So under normal circumstances I’d say they’d learned to follow the boat.”

“But these are not normal circumstances, Rafiki.” Abe joined them. He looked as solemn as Chloe.

“I don’t really care for birds,” Mitch said, “not after they tried to turn my ex-wife and daughter into human shish-kebabs.”

“Relax,” Laporte reassured them. He’d been talking to the captain, a sturdy man with wild grey hair. “You have nothing to fear from these birds. They cannot harm the boat.”

“Not really the boat I was worried about.” 

As if to counterpoint his words a seagull shrieked and spiralled down from the flock. Another broke away. Then another.

“They’re attacking!” Laporte yelled as more of the flock began to dive toward them. “Find some shelter!”

“Shelter on a fishing boat. What, do I just jump in the hold?” Mitch asked. “Do we even have a hold?”

“Shut up and hide!”

Jackson hustled the hungover scientist toward the wheel-house and shoved him inside, already looking for Chloe. Abe had found a large tarpaulin and was busy encouraging the French woman to climb under. Then he wriggled beside her just as the first seagull completed a dive-bomb attack. Seeing his friends were safe – or as safe as they could be – Jackson slammed the wheel-house door shut behind him.

Seagulls dived and shrieked. The glass of the wheel-house cracked from the impact of multiple bird attacks. 

“Well, this is awkward,” Mitch said, trying to ease himself a little space. Several members of the crew had made it inside. “Hi, how you doing?” 

“Your breath stinks of vomit,” one fisherman said.

“You say the sweetest things.”

“Quiet!” Jackson commanded, peering through the cracked windows. “Can you hear that?”

The birds had fallen silent. They were pulling up, pulling away.

“I don’t hear anything…”

_“Listen,_ will you?”

A low, moaning sound echoed through the boat. 

“Oh _please_ tell me that’s not what I think it is,” Jackson begged.  
Under the tarpaulin, Chloe and Abe were shaken but unharmed. The noise rolled over the boat, making the deck vibrate. 

_“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”_ Chloe demanded, her voice high and tight with fear.

The sound came again, low and mournful. Almost otherworldly. The waves parted and a massive, wedge-shaped tail broke the surface, rising majestically into the air. A second later it slammed down.

“That is totally what I think it is,” Jackson said. “OK, I’m out. We’re doomed.”

“It’s a whale,” Mitch groaned. “Of course it is. Because we couldn’t just have a normal, ordinary sea voyage.”

Some large body struck the boat. It juddered. The blow came again, harder. The vessel made an ominous, metallic creaking noise.

“I never thought I would die like this,” Abe said, poking his head out from the tarpaulin. 

“I would say everything will be fine, but…” Tears glimmered in Chloe’s eyes, unshed but close. “How did you envision your end?”

“Surrounded by many beautiful women,” he replied. 

There was another large blow. Below deck, the creak of metal became a groan and then a shriek as something gave way. 

Chloe took his hand. “Well, there is only one woman on this boat, so I suppose that makes me the most attractive.”

“You are a very beautiful lady.” Abe met her eyes and didn’t look away. “And very strong. I had hoped you and Jackson…”

The fishermen – finally realising that their boat was doomed – rushed from their hiding places, giving Jackson and Mitch some space. 

“Man the lifeboat!” the captain howled. 

“The lifeboat!” Jackson cried. “Of course!” 

He went to follow the fishermen, but Mitch caught his arm. Another massive impact rocked the boat, and now it began to list.

“Wait! The whale is making mincemeat of _this_ boat – what d’you think it’s going to do to the lifeboat?”

“I’d rather die trying to live than die after I’d given up on life,” Jackson spat, sudden disgust on his face. “Jamie deserves better.”

Mitch recoiled as if he’d been slapped. Moisture reddened his eyes. He swallowed, swallowed again. Jackson turned and followed the fishermen.

A second later Mitch followed him.

“That was a low blow,” he muttered.

“Worked though, didn’t it?”

“We’re still gonna die.”

“Hey, I got us out of the city.”

“Out of the frying pan and into the fire…”

“Don’t quote Tolkien at me –”

The boat gave a violent shudder. Chloe scrambled out from under the tarpaulin; Jackson saw her and helped her up. Abe followed close behind. The footing had become so unsteady they could barely stand. 

One more hard shove from below was all it took. The boat, already listing dangerously, went over completely. The humans on board slid into the ocean, screaming, clutching desperately at anything they thought would save them. 

A massive grey-black tail broke the surface, rising like the tower on a submarine. Then it smashed back down. The air was filled with the triumphant shriek of seagulls and the haunting, unearthly song of a whale.

*****

The daylight was fading when Jamie finally succumbed to exhaustion. 

She’d watched the bear all day, barely moving, her agitation growing with every passing second. The hole was getting bigger. The bear was moving even more slowly than the frozen earth would suggest; it was almost as if it was toying with them. 

She didn’t want to credit the bear with that much intelligence. But given everything she’d seen over the last five months, everything she’d experienced, she _had_ to.

Aippaq had tried to go out again and again, but each time he tried he was attacked by birds. Sometimes it was the eagles. Sometimes it was starlings, sparrows, seagulls. Each time he came scurrying back into the house, scratched and bloody.

She realised she had to give in and go to bed when she woke from a short, deep sleep, still at her post in front of the window. Her muscles ached. Her head ached. She stumbled away from the window toward the room Aippaq had given her. She just had the presence of mind to grab the sat phone.

Seconds later she collapsed on the bed. She stabbed Mitch’s number into the phone, held it to her ear. Just one quick call before she went to sleep. 

It rang… and rang… and rang…

*****

Grit. Grit against his cheek. Jackson tried to open his eyes and found them gummed shut. 

He moved his arm. It hurt. He moved his other arm and that hurt. Slowly he rubbed his fingers against his eyelids, wincing. Then they were open.

The world swam into focus, bleary, distant. He saw dirty grey-yellow sand and a dark smudge, a moving, blue-black blur that was making a noise…

Memory rushed back. The boat. The seagulls, the whale. He must have washed up on an island somewhere. It was a miracle he was even alive. The others…?

He staggered to his feet, vision still blurry. He squinted. He was soaked, freezing, his jacket long since gone. His limbs felt leaden.

He saw a body twenty feet away. Ten feet beyond that was another. And another. And another. Jackson lurched toward them, dropped to his knees at the first.

It was Mitch. Jackson pressed his fingers to the man’s throat, desperately trying to find a pulse – there! A weak flutter, but it was there.

“Come on, buddy,” Jackson muttered, shaking him, “time to wake up. Come on now.”

*****

“Chloe. Chloe, wake up. Wake up!”

Chloe’s eyes snapped open. She sat up and wished that she hadn’t – she was frozen, her jacket lost, her hair unbound and tangled.

Abe hovered over her, ready to shake her again.

“Thank God you are alive!” he said. “The others… they didn’t make it.”

“Jackson?” Panic tinged her voice.

“I can find neither Jackson nor Mitch. It is possible they washed up on another island…”

“Laporte?”

“I cannot find him, either.”

“Then… then we are alone,” Chloe said, wrapping her arms around herself. 

A deep roar made the dying light suddenly alive.

“Not anymore,” Abe said.

*****

Mitch was battered and bruised but very much alive. He’d lost his glasses but had got into the habit of always carrying a spare pair in his pocket – which he pulled out now. They were wet, of course, but they’d been protected inside their case. He cleaned them off and put them on.

“They’re all dead?” he asked. 

“All the fishermen I could find, yeah,” Jackson replied. He was shivering violently. “I just checked Laporte.” He shook his head.

“Chloe? Abe?”

“Can’t find ‘em.” His voice cracked. He looked away.

“Jackson, I’m sorry…”

“They might not be dead! We washed up, didn’t we? So could they!”

“You’re right, you’re right. Of course they could. We’ll look for them.”

An enraged snarl ripped through the air.

“If we live that long, of course…”


	3. Lions And Tigers and Pizzlies – What?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the island, Jackson and Mitch begin the search for their missing friends, but find instead a local inhabitant who knows the area. They speculate that Evan Lee Hartley – a man who’d once worked with Jackson’s father – had mixed the mother cell with his own stem cells in an effort to make himself evolve.  
> The team are being stalked by polar/grizzly bear hybrids called pizzlies. Can they find each other before they’re picked off? Can their guide get them to the right island and rescue Jamie before it’s too late?

The light was fading fast. Growls echoed through the dunes, rolling along the beach. Pricks of light – eyes – flicked into life.

“Help me find something we can use as a weapon!” Jackson ordered, already roving up the beach.

“What, are we going to throw sand balls at them?”

“As always, Mitch, your support is _truly_ appreciated. Find a stick or something!”

Mitch shrugged and started searching. He was so tired that he was almost inclined to just lie down and let whatever was out there eat him – if it hadn’t been for Jackson’s comment as the boat was breaking up. _Jamie deserves better._ He’d been more right than he’d thought. Jamie was an attractive, vivacious, intelligent and compassionate woman. She deserved someone who would compliment those aspects of her personality, not a bitter, cynical old scientist who couldn’t even finish med school. 

But that kiss. On the airplane. He hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t had time to formulate any kind of defence. On the long, empty, alcohol-fuelled nights since the crash, he’d remembered how she felt, remembered how soft her skin had been under his touch – 

“Yo! Mitch! Reminisce when we’re not about to get eaten!”

Mitch snapped out of his reverie and started looking for a weapon. Any weapon.

*****

Chloe peered through the gloom, desperately trying to identify how many animals were out there. She stopped counting, terrified and sick to her heart.

_Jackson is gone. My sister Natalie thinks I am the Devil. What is there to live for? Why should I not just let the animals eat me?_

“We have to get off this beach!” Abe’s voice intruded on her personal monologue. She shook herself, burying those thoughts deep inside herself.

“Where are we going to go?”

“Anywhere that is not here!”

They ran. They left the snarling behind and ran.

*****

Jackson found a branch, a stout but gnarled length of driftwood. As he hefted it in his hands the first animal slunk out of the thickening gloom.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Mitch asked. He’d made a pouch of his over-shirt, even though he was freezing, and had stuffed it with pebbles. “A polar bear?”

“Actually I think it’s a pizzly,” Jackson explained, brandishing his driftwood spear in a threatening gesture. “Grizzly bears are being driven out of towns, their forests are cut down–”

“And climate change is making the Arctic melt,” Mitch finished. “Yeah, I get the picture.”

Another pizzly joined the first. They were smaller than polar bears, leaner, though Jackson wandered if that was due to lack of food.

_I’m about to get eaten by a polar bear / grizzly hybrid and I’m worried about whether the damn thing grew up hungry?_

“And we’re going to fight these things with, quite literally, sticks and stones,” Mitch continued. “I’m beginning to wonder whether drowning at sea would have been less traumatic than getting eaten.”

A _crack_ rent the air. One of the pizzlies bellowed and lurched away, a red stain blossoming across its flank. 

Jackson’s head whipped around. Gunshot. Where had it come from? Another shot hit the second pizzly on the rump. It roared. Both bears lurched away, in search of easier prey.

A lean, weathered man walked out of the thickening gloom, a shotgun slung over his shoulder.

“Guess you boys better come in out of the cold,” he said.

*****

“Do we even know what is chasing us?” Chloe panted. Her lungs were burning. Running over sand was sapping what little energy she had left. 

“All we need to know is that they are going to eat us if we stop!” Abe wheezed.

“Look!” Chloe shouted, pointing into the distance. “Over there! I see a building!”

The two exhausted survivors shot toward what looked like an old, abandoned log cabin. The door was open. They flew inside. Abe slammed the door shut, throwing his not- insubstantial weight against the wood. Chloe, breath steaming in the chill air, scurried to a window and peered through. 

“This place cannot have been abandoned for long,” she said, trying to get her breath back. “The furniture is all gone, but the glass is intact.” She tapped a window pane.

“What is out there?” Abe asked.

“They… they look like polar bears,” she replied. “But they are wounded. That means there must be somebody else on the island!”

“They could have swum here from another island,” Abe cautioned. “Do not get your hopes up, Chloe.”

“You are a fine one to talk about hope,” she snapped. “That hill is steep indeed, but it is one I will gladly ascend!”

A thud against the door made Abe’s eyes widen with fear. 

“You had best find something to bar this door with,” he said, “and hope that these bears cannot get inside!”

*****

Jackson and Mitch followed the stranger through the fading daylight. They could see a cabin in the distance, light from within spilling through the windows. It was surrounded by a high metal fence.

“Name’s Jari,” the man explained, “Jari Heikkinen.” He sounded as if he was from one of the Scandinavian countries. “Looks like I came along just in time.”

“You saved our lives, Mr. Heikkinen,” Jackson replied. “You’ve no idea how grateful we are.” He nudged Mitch. “Right?”

“Right! Yes! Totally. And exhausted, let’s not forget about that.”

“Call me Jari. Shipwreck, was it?”

“We were in a fishing vessel on our way to… actually, I have no idea what the island was called,” Jackson explained, suddenly despondent. “Guy’s name is…”

“Aippaq,” Mitch supplied. 

“Ah, you are friends of Aippaq?” 

“He’s been looking after someone we care about. We were _en route_ to pick her up.”

“What was she doing out here?”

“Plane crash.” Mitch’s lips thinned. “For three months we thought she was dead.”

“I am sorry for your friends who did not make it,” Jari said, gesturing back toward the beach.

“Those were the fishermen we came with,” Jackson said, “and a man from the Canadian Secret Security Intelligence Service. We were with two other people, a big black guy, yay high?” He held a hand way over the top of his head. “And a French woman, blonde.”

“Maybe they washed up on another beach,” Jari said, thoughtful. “But I can’t look for them tonight. It’s too dangerous out here.”

“You have to help us!” Jackson flared, grabbing the man by the shoulder. “They could be _dead_ by morning!”

Jari stopped, turning to the two men. He gave them a long, slow look.

“I don’t have to do anything. I didn’t have to see those pizzlies off.” 

“But you did,” Jackson said, “and we’re grateful. Please, Jari, _please_ help us find our friends.”

“What is your name, young man?”

“Jackson Oz. This is Mitch, Mitchell Morgan.”

“Oz? That is a very unusual name. I have heard of only one other person with that surname.”

“Was it Robert? Robert Oz?”

“Yes. It was.”

“I’m his son.”

“Then we have much to discuss! And perhaps we _can_ find your friends tonight.”

*****

In the abandoned cabin, Chloe had finished exploring and had returned with a few broken pieces of furniture. Abe braced them tightly against the door.

“Are the bears still out there?” Chloe asked.

“I cannot see them now, it is too dark outside. But I can hear them. They have not gone.”

“What do we do now?”

“We stay alive until dawn… and then try to find a way to escape the bears.”

“I think we will freeze to death before dawn.”

“That, I think, will not happen.”

“How is it that you can be so confidant?”

Abe reached into a pocket. He withdrew a small cylindrical device and held it up so that Chloe could see.

_“Mon dieu_ … is that a _lighter?_ That cannot work, surely?”

Abe pressed the button, flicked the flint. A tiny bright flame sprang to life. A huge smile spread across his face.

Abandoning her usually reserved nature, she flung her arms around him and planted an exuberant kiss on his chin. She had to stand on tip-toe.

“But you are not a smoker! And how is it that it still works?”

“I do not question why a thing works, I am merely thankful that it does. As to why I have it… well, there are certain things that a man should always carry on his person. A sharp blade and a flame. He can go far with these things.”

*****

The abandoned cabin had a stone fireplace. They broke up one of the few remaining wooden chairs and arranged the broken pieces in the hearth. After a few minutes they had a small, cheery fire going. 

Chloe knelt in front of the blaze, gazing into the flickering fire.

“That hill is looking so steep now,” she murmured. “Even if Jackson and Mitch survived the boat, how will they survive this?”

Abe lowered himself to sit beside her, hands outstretched to the warmth. “If there is a way, they will find it. The hill is steep, yes, but if they help each other two people may ascend with more ease than one.”

“How is it you always know the right thing to say?” Chloe smiled.

Abe’s expression was distant, far away. “A childhood of hoping those things would be said to me… and never hearing them.”

*****

The others stopped briefly at Jari’s. There he found them clean, dry, warm clothes, and pressed a mug of soup into their hands. 

“You boys know how to handle a gun?” he asked them.

“You shoot other people with the pointy end,” Mitch said. 

“I have experience,” Jackson, giving Mitch a look.

“Good. We’ll take the Jeep, but if something comes at us, don’t you hesitate to shoot it.”

“I won’t,” Jackson replied, “believe me, I won’t.”

*****

They drove slowly along the beach, headlights on full and powerful, rack-mounted searchlights blazing. 

“Jari, what can you tell me about my father?” Jackson asked. “Did you know Evan Lee Hartley?”

“We worked together,” was Jari’s slow answer. “Roger, Evan Lee and me, we worked on this island. Nice and private, out of the way.”

“When was this?”

“Oh, years ago. Before he went out to that island. With that woman.”

“Minako?”

“Yes, that’s the one. After what happened with Evan Lee… well, he wanted to isolate himself.”

“What happened? Before he died he told me that my father had done something to him.”

“He did do something, but it was with Evan Lee’s full consent. Robert tried to make him evolve.”

*****

Chloe started from a light doze, her whole body becoming tense. Abe was awake, staring at the door. He held his finger to his lips to indicate silence.

Something scrabbled at the door. Something big.

*****

Jamie snapped awake. It was still dark; she had no idea what time it was, or how long she’d slept. From the way her eyes stung, she’d be willing to believe she hadn’t slept at all – if it hadn’t been for the fragmented nightmares that still rattled through her brain.

Her hand fumbled for the sat phone. She’d tried it again and again, her fear growing with each attempt. Where was Mitch, where were the others? Why hadn’t he answered? Had he just lost his phone, or had something happened to prevent him from answering?

Those ideas tormented her again as she dialled Mitch’s number, fingers moving blindly over the key pad in the dark. She didn’t need to see the keys. 

It rang… and rang… and rang…

“Where are you, Mitch?” she cried, flinging the phone across the room. It hit the far wall but didn’t break. “Where the _hell_ are you?”

The door banged open, light making her squint. Aippaq flew into the room, talking high and fast, jabbing a finger behind him. 

“What? What is it?” Jamie demanded, throwing the covers back. “Slow down! Just slow down!”

Then she heard a low, angry roar from outside. 

“No. No, no, no…”

She pushed past Aippaq and ran out into the living room, skidding to a stop in front of the window. Spotlights blazed across the yard. Jamie stared, horrified. 

The bear _had_ been taunting them. It had been waiting for the cover of darkness to really go to work on that hole. Because now, emerging from a tunnel entrance _on the inside of the fence,_ was one huge, furious bear.

Aippaq pulled her away from the window. He was carrying his shotgun.

*****

“Wait, what?” Mitch interrupted before Jackson could speak. “Evolve? Like the animals have been doing?”

“Exactly like the animals,” Jari explained.

“Was he exposed to the mother cell before he tried to vaccinate himself?” Jackson asked. “We know it doesn’t affect humans like it does animals. How could it happen?”

“Stem cells,” Mitch muttered, thinking hard. “It’s the only way it could work.”

“Your friend is a scientist,” Jari said, nodding approvingly.

“Veterinary pathologist. I don’t like to brag.”

“Could someone explain to me how the hell stem cells could make Evan Lee Hartley go mad?” Jackson demanded. 

“The mother cell is a catalyst, right?” Mitch said. “Speeds up changes that would happen naturally. All the animals changed by being exposed to it, all except the leopards. Their evolution began without it. But the vaccine I made, I mixed some of the mother cell with tooth stem cells from the leopard cub. So Hartley must have somehow done the same thing.”

“You’re sure about this?” Jackson asked.

“Well, it’s a theory…”

“A good theory!” Jari announced. “Robert would have liked you.”

“What I don’t understand,” Mitch said, looking at Jackson, “is how your father knew the leopards were changing first. I also want to know how he found out about the mother cell – and where he got it from.”

“Now you’re asking the right questions,” Jari laughed. “Robert would _really_ have liked you!”

“Wait,” Mitch said, “d’you see that? Over there? Bodies!”

*****

Abe and Chloe were on their feet. The fire was dying down, the heat it threw out mostly gone. They watched the door as something thudded against it again. And again. 

The door began to crack.

*****

Jari brought the Jeep to a skidding halt on the beach. Jackson and Mitch hopped out, running from body to body.

“Dead,” Jackson said, “all of ‘em.”

“And kind of eaten,” Mitch said.

“Chloe!” Jackson yelled, staring off into the night. “Abe!”

“They’re not here – hey, look at this!”

Mitch pointed at what he’d found – footsteps in the sand, heading off down the beach.

Jackson squatted by the footprints, running his fingers over them.

“They were being chased.” He touched larger, clawed prints. “By the pizzlies.” 

“You’re sure of that?”

“Look, the gait of this one is uneven – this is the one Jari shot in the leg. I’m sure, Mitch.”

“There is an old cabin near here!” Jari called over the roar of the vehicle. “If your friends didn’t drown in the sea, and the pizzlies didn’t get them, they may have made it there!”

“This guy’s a real barrel of laughs,” Mitch said. “I like him.”

*****

Aippaq pulled the door open, stood on the doorstep and braced the shotgun against his shoulder. The bear barrelled toward him. Aippaq had a clear, easy shot.

But Jamie should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

A tide of small, furry, chittering things swarmed over him, sweeping over his feet and up his legs. He let out a startled oath and staggered away, down the steps, momentarily forgetting the bear.

“No!” Jamie yelled, reaching for him. But it was too late. While Aippaq was distracted, the bear – still in full charge – cannoned into him. The bear closed its massive jaws around his throat.

_“No!”_

Some instinct – the same small, hard instinct that had kept her afloat when the plane crashed – made her dart forward. Before she knew what she was doing she snatched the shotgun from where it had fallen and fled back into the house. She slammed the door just as the bear hit. She screamed and jumped back, almost tripping herself on the gun’s long barrel.

She rushed to the living room so that she could look out through the window, choking on tears as she tried to keep it together. If Aippaq was still alive he wouldn’t be for long; he was covered with swarming, wriggling bodies. Ferrets? Weasels? Jamie didn’t have a clue and right now it didn’t matter. _They_ hadn’t needed to come through the tunnel; even now she could see more climbing over the fence. 

They’d waited until Aippaq had been distracted by the bear. Then they’d struck. The man who’d rescued her from the ocean, the man who’d nursed her back to health and given her the safety of his own home – who’d raised the leopard cub rather than shooting him – was dead.

Jamie bit back a sob. She had the shotgun… but she was alone.

*****

The Jeep rocked as Jari steered it skilfully through the dunes. 

“How did my father know the leopards were changing first?” Jackson asked.

“Observational data,” Jari explained. “He had watchers all over the world. He got consistent reports about leopards acting smarter. Next question.”

“How did he know about the mother cell? Does he have some connection with Reiden Global?” 

Jackson didn’t want to believe his father could have had _anything_ to do with the mega-corporation, but he wasn’t prepared to rule it out. After what he’d seen on the island off Japan, he was beginning to wonder whether he’d ever really known him.

“Let me ask you a question,” Jari said. “What d’you think the mother cell is?”

“The root of all evil?” 

“Nice try,” Mitch interjected. “Everyone knows that’s lawyers.”

“What do _you_ think the mother cell is, Mr. Science Man?”

“Honestly? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was amber. It’s a hard, organic substance.”

“And where does amber come from?”

“Well, if I remember Jurassic Park as well as I think I do, it kinda gets dug out of the ground. Are you saying this stuff is _mined?”_

“He shoots, he scores!”

“Bet it wasn’t thrown up by a volcano.”

“No one really knows how it was made. There is a mine, but the location is more closely guarded than any diamond.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” Jackson demanded.

“Because I discovered it.”

*****

“Come away from the door!” Abe said, grabbing Chloe’s arm and dragging her back.

“Do you think being eaten alive will hurt very much?” she asked.

“Did you hit your head when the boat went down?”

“Maybe.”

The makeshift barricade, already splintered, flew apart. Abe darted forward and grabbed a broken length of wood, but he wasn’t fast enough – the opening door slammed into him, knocking him aside.

A pizzly bear – white fur stained red from a gunshot wound – rose on its haunches in the doorway. Its mouth gaped wide as it roared. 

Chloe was so terrified that she couldn’t move. Frozen, she watched death come for her.

*****

“There it is!” Jari yelled, pointing at a nearby structure. 

The front door was open. Weak light, firelight, spilled through the opening, barely visible through the rearing form of an enraged pizzly bear. Jari brought the Jeep to a skidding halt. Jackson leapt out, shotgun in hand, before it had come to a full halt. He landed, overbalanced, and rolled to his feet.

He put the shotgun to his shoulder, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

*****

Abe dragged Chloe out of the way just as the bear lunged. She screamed and they both fell over. When she scrabbled to her feet and turned, expecting to see the animal bearing down on her, she was surprised to find it limp on the floor.

There was a huge hole where its skull had been.

Chloe jumped as another _crack_ exploded through the air. She peered out through the open doorway, blinded by the Jeep’s light, and just made out the prone shape of the second pizzly.

“Jackson?” she whispered. 

She dashed past the dead bears and into the night. Still blinded, she couldn’t see who swept her into a fierce embrace until she heard a familiar voice.

_“I thought you were dead,”_ Jackson groaned, his face buried in the crook of her neck.

“I very nearly was,” she laughed, realising as moisture dampened her cheeks that she was crying, too. “Your timing is perfect.”

They pulled away from each other just long enough to make eye contact. They came together in a deep kiss that was only broken when Abe swept them both into a fierce hug.

“You never cease to surprise me, Rafiki!” he exclaimed, thumping them both on the back.

“What, no love for me?” Mitch asked, arms spread. His tone was as sarcastic as usual, but there was a happy grin on his face. 

Abe grabbed the scientist and pulled him into a group hug. 

*****

Jamie hadn’t moved for hours. She was cold, tired, and sick to her stomach. She kept the shotgun trained on the door.

The bear was still there. Periodically it tested the door. If it managed to break through Jamie was going to shoot it in the head.

She was so intent on the bear that she didn’t notice that a couple of wolves had come through the tunnel, too. She didn’t hear them snuffle around the house. She didn’t see them exchange looks with the bear.

She didn’t see the bear set its considerable strength against a window.

But she did hear the sound of shattering glass echoing through the house. She heard when something thumped into another room. The bear was too big to get through, but the wolves weren’t; even as she sprinted into the living room, two wolves had already leapt through. She skidded to a halt just a few feet away from them.

They lunged toward her. If she hadn’t had the shotgun they would have ripped her to pieces; as it was, it was sheer luck that it was pointed in the right direction when her finger squeezed the trigger. The slug ripped through one of the wolves. It squealed and dropped.

The second wolf stopped and nuzzled its fallen pack mate. Jamie used the distraction to sprint out of the room and up the stairs, the wolves’ howl echoing after her. She slammed the door behind her, dropped the shotgun and sank to the floor.

She covered her ears with both hands and sobbed. 

*****

“So you’re telling me Evan Lee Hartley willingly allowed himself to be injected with the mother cell?” Chloe asked. They were all in the Jeep, speeding back toward Jari’s house. It was a tight fit. Especially with Abe. 

“With a modified solution of the mother cell,” Jari clarified. “Mixed with his own stem cells. The solution reverses evolution in animals because it is mixed with stem cells from the leopard, a creature that evolved naturally with no catalyst. But humans aren’t affected as animals are – we need that stem cell mix to start the change.”

“I don’t pretend to understand any of this,” she muttered. “I don’t even know what to do with this information.”

“Oh, the next step’s quite obvious,” Mitch said.

“To a scientist, maybe!”

“Hate to say it, Chloe, but I’m with him on this one,” Jackson announced. “Hartley was affected by the mother cell. We saw the evidence of that with the defiant pupil, and with his connection to that wolf pack. So the next step is to begin more human trials.”

“We don’t even know the full extent of what this thing can do!”

“Well, it’s not like we can experiment on animals now, can we?” Jari said. “Give that mixture to an evolved chimp and he’ll just go back to normal.”

“I wonder how Jamie will react when she hears this,” Mitch said, quiet. 

“Can’t imagine she’d be too happy,” Jackson replied. “Not after what Reiden did to her mother.”

“I have a boat,” Jari said. “She and Aippaq are on the next island. I’ll take you to her.”

“Ah, a boat?” Mitch said. “Not sure if that’s a good idea right now…”

“Don’t worry.” Jari sounded smug. “It’s a short hop between the islands. The water is too shallow for the whales to swim through. You’ll be safe.”

*****

‘Safe’ was an interesting interpretation. They didn’t encounter any turbulence from sea mammals – or birds, for that matter – but a flock of bats seemed determined to make their lives a misery. 

Jari, however, was prepared for them. He’d slung lengths of netting from port to starboard across his small, stout fishing vessel. The bats – knowing they’d foul their wings in the netting – swooped in, pulled out at the last second, and flew away.

“I never thought I’d truly understand how it felt to be hunted,” Jackson mused as they bounced over the waves. Jari had a series of powerful searchlights playing across their path, and he could see the outline of another island coming up fast. “Do you think this is how our deep ancestors felt?”

“Hard to say.” Chloe gave a shrug, managing to look more nonchalant than she felt. “The animals of yesterday had not yet evolved to hate our ancestors.”

“Do you think Evan Lee Hartley hated humans?” Mitch mused, speculative. 

“I strongly believe he did,” Abe answered. “Though whether that was through his own evolution, or from whatever bond he had with the wolves, I do not know.”

“Human evolution… you know, we’ve gone through the last couple hundred years thinking we’ve reached the top of our tree,” Jackson said. “If anyone were to develop some kind of evolutionary change, the government would go all _X-Men_ on their asses.”

“Nope,” Mitch said. “That would be the general population. People fear what they don’t understand; the US Army tries to turn it into a weapon.” He threw off an ironic salute. “God bless America.” 

“I wish we’d got to Hartley sooner. We know he displayed the defiant pupil, and we know – or at least, we can guess based on observation – that he also displayed alpha dominance over that wolf pack in Louisiana. We don’t know what else he could do.”

“How do you suppose he did that?” Chloe asked. “Mind control? Telepathy?”

“All of those things,” Jari interrupted. “All of those things and more. The wolves recognised him as pack even though he looked like a human.”

“But how?”

“Brain waves. Scent. Behaviour.”

“Like… to catch a wolf, first you must think like a wolf?” Mitch ventured.

“More like you must become a wolf. But that is just wolves.”

“I don’t understand.”

“All the animals exhibited different evolutionary traits. What’s to say that humans, when exposed to Hartley’s treatment, won’t also display different traits?”

“I call dibs on wings,” Mitch said.

*****

Jari brought the boat to a halt beside a small quay. The first thin fingers of dawn were inching across the sky, brilliant tendrils of scarlet amidst thick grey-black cloud. 

“I hope Jamie’s OK,” Mitch said as the boat bumped against the quay. “I told her we’d be here hours ago.” He squinted against the spreading light. “I hope she’s not worried about us.”

“And here is the Mitchell Morgan subtext,” Abe said, unsmiling. “You’re worried about Jamie.”

“How could I not be? She’s all alone on the island with some guy and a leopard. She’s a journalist, Abe – not a gung-ho adventurer like you and Jackson. Uh, no offence.”

“None taken. But Mitch, you do her a disservice – she has proven time and again that she is no mere journalist. She is brave, tenacious, and compassionate. She sees the good in people that others do not see in themselves. Like you, for instance.”

Mitch looked away.

“Listen up, you lot!” Jari called. “It’s about half a mile from the quay to Aippaq’s house. That’s a mile through the woods. If something comes at you, you shoot it.”

“Does this Aippaq not have a motor vehicle?” Abe asked. 

“Sure he does. At his house.”

“So we could use it to get back to the boat.”

“Providing we get there in one piece.”

“Less talking,” Mitch snapped. “The sooner we get this Boy Scout trip out of the way, the happier we’ll all be.”

*****

Jari led them along a wide, well-used trail, marching along two-abreast. Jari and Jackson were in the lead, with Chloe and Mitch behind them, while Abe brought up the rear. Three of them were armed. 

After a few minutes the wind changed, bringing with it the distinctive sound of wolf song. 

“They’re close,” Jari said, troubled. “Aippaq _should_ be OK, there’s a fence around his house…”

“Wolves can get under fences,” Jackson said, alarmed.

They broke into a run.

*****

Jamie had moved away from the door, scrabbling to lock it behind her. Then she shoved over whatever furniture she could find as an additional barrier. The bed was too heavy to move. The dresser and bed-side table had to do. 

“There’s no way they can get in, there’s no way they can get in,” she whispered to herself, over and over again. “I’m in a second story room, the bear can’t get through the broken window, and the wolves can’t get through this door. There’s no way they can get in.”

But she still kept the shotgun trained on the door. 

*****

They broke out of the woods minutes later, gasping for breath and trying to look everywhere at once.

“There,” Jari said, pointing to a tidy wood cabin surrounded by a high metal fence. 

“I don’t think the wolves are supposed to be on the inside!” Jackson said. “How do we get in?”

“The gate’s locked from the inside. Only Aippaq has the key.”

“More importantly,” Mitch said, pushing to the front of the group, “how did the damn wolves get inside? And where’s Jamie?”

An enraged roar caught their attention. On the outside of the fence, pulling itself from a large hole in the ground, was a huge brown bear.

Jari raised his gun and sighted, lining up on the bear. 

A sudden squawk seized their attention. A massive bird lunged at Jari, wings flapping, claws outstretched. He ducked away with a wild curse.

“We either climb over the fence or we go through the tunnel!” Abe cried as they scattered away from more birds.

The bear, now free of the tunnel, charged toward them.

“Yeah, tunnel’s not really an option,” Mitch called, sprinting further down the fence and away from the bear. “Guess we climb!”

“Can’t bears climb, too?” Chloe demanded.

“Don’t tell him that!”

They made it to the fence and started climbing. Mitch – spurred on by more than self-preservation – reached it first, though he was slow to climb. Jackson, Chloe and Jari overtook him. Abe struggled, the fence shaking as he heaved himself up. The bear snapped at their heels… but he didn’t climb.

The reason became apparent before they’d even reached the top of the fence. There was a pack of snarling wolves waiting for them below.

*****

Jamie, still listening to the wolves sniffing outside her door, heard a change in those howling outside. The howls gave way to barks. The bear was roaring. Dragging her eyes away from the door she crossed to the window – and froze.

Mitch was here. He’d come for her, he was finally here! It didn’t matter that he was halfway up the fence, didn’t matter that the wolves were – quite literally – at her door, that the bear and God only knew what else was still out there. _Mitch was here._

She threw the window open and leaned out.

“Mitch!” she yelled, finally taking note of the others. “I’m in here!”

Mitch, barely halfway up the fence and fixed determinedly on the top, heard a voice he was sure he’d never hear again. He turned his head so quickly he thought he’d cricked his neck.

She looked… even through the fence, even though her face was pinched with fear, she looked beautiful. Seeing her felt like coming home. He’d never felt that with Audra. 

“What’s going on in there?” he called, pausing in his climb. The others, already further up, paused. “Are you OK?”

“It’s so, _so_ good to see you guys!” Jamie squealed. “Uh, I think Aippaq’s dead, there’s a bear roaming around, and I’m trapped by a pack of wolves. Oh, and the birds around here are kinda shady, too. Apart from that I’m peachy!”

As if to prove her point, several wolves left the house through a broken window and gathered at the base of the fence. A shriek from above signalled the arrival of more birds.

“I’m beginning to think the tunnel might have been a better idea,” Mitch muttered, and climbed. “Hang in there, Jamie.”

*****

Jackson recognised the birds as eagles. He climbed faster, checking every few seconds to make sure that Chloe was still with him.

The first bird swooped, claws extended, and raked his back. Jackson bit back a yell and tried to bat the bird away, taking one hand off the fence.

“Just climb!” Chloe yelled. “The birds can’t reach us if we can get inside the house!”

So they endured the birds’ attacks as best they could, each picking up raking wounds to their backs and arms. Their faces were protected by their arms and the fence itself. 

Jari reached the top of the fence and swung himself over. The wolves gathered at the base, expectant. A moment later the bear – having come back through the tunnel – joined them. Jari hooked an arm through a gap in the fence, bracing himself, and aimed his shotgun at the bear.

At once the birds overhead tried to swarm him. He cursed again and had to abandon the shoot, covering his head.

“Oh! Oh! I’ve totally got this!” Jamie shouted, waving her own gun. Being in a more sheltered position, she was able to take a shot without being mobbed by the birds. 

“I never thought I’d be doing this,” she murmured, taking aim. She squeezed off a shot. The bear dropped.

The wolves and the birds went mad, howling and shrieking. The wolves ducked below her field of vision, and she assumed they’d jumped back through the window – a suspicion confirmed a moment later when she heard them throw themselves against the bedroom door. The birds dive-bombed the window. Jamie slammed it shut just in time.

_“Now_ how am I going to get out?”

*****

The others made it over the fence and onto the ground, casting wary eyes at the bear. It wasn’t moving.

“Never realised Jamie was such a good shot,” Mitch muttered as they ran around to the broken window. 

“Try telling that to not-FBI Agent Ben Schaffer,” Jackson replied.

As they reached the window they nearly ran into the lone wolf that been left on guard. Jackson – too startled to take a shot – used his gun as a club, bringing the stock down hard on the wolf’s head. It collapsed. 

“The garage is on the other side of the house,” Jari told them as they climbed, carefully, through the smashed window. “Go and get your friend. I’ll get the Jeep. Hope one of you boys can hotwire it, because I have no idea where Aippaq kept his key.”

“The leopard!” Jackson smacked his forehead. “How’re we going to get the damned _leopard_ out of here?”

“Does Aippaq have a tranq gun?” Abe asked.

“I have no idea,” Jari said.

“Where does he keep his guns?”

“In the garage. OK, you come with me.” Jari pointed at Abe. “We’ll grab the Jeep and look for a tranquilliser gun, then get the leopard. You three go get Jamie.” 

*****

Jackson, Chloe and Mitch explored the house. Jackson took point, shotgun held warily in front of him, while Mitch brought up the rear with another gun.

“I do not feel comfortable having you behind me,” Chloe whispered. “I am afraid you will shoot me.”

“Note to self – keep the pointy end away from the French woman,” Mitch whispered back. 

“Quiet,” Jackson hissed as they reached the stairs. Now they could hear scratching and scrabbling – the wolves were on the landing above, frantically throwing themselves against Jamie’s door. 

The sudden explosion of fur and fangs took them all by surprise. A wolf – perhaps one left on sentry – leapt at them from the top of the stairs. 

Jackson got the gun up and let off a shot just as the animal landed on him. Chloe screamed. He fell back with a wordless yell. Mitch jumped back.

“I’m alright,” came a muffled voice from underneath the wolf. He wriggled free and was finding his feet when Chloe shouted.

“Mitch, look out!” 

The veterinary pathologist turned just in time to see another wolf coming down the stairs. He squeezed the shotgun’s trigger in reflexive response. It was sheer coincidence the gun was pointed in the right direction. The shot took out the wolf’s throat.

“Well, that was… awful,” he said to himself, looking away from the ruined body.

“What’s happening?” Jamie’s voice floated down to them. 

“Are there any more wolves up there?” Chloe shouted back.

“I don’t know! I can’t hear any more!”

“Stay there! We are coming to you!”

Mitch was already running up the stairs, so fixed on getting to Jamie that he didn’t notice the last wolf standing out of sight in the hallway. Not until it was too late. With a snarl the wolf clamped its jaws around his lower leg and started shaking. Mitch screamed and collapsed.

Jackson shot the wolf and rushed to the fallen man, dropping to his knees.

“That’s some bite you got there,” he said. He pulled his over-shirt off and wrapped it around Mitch’s leg.

“If you make a crack about rabies I’ll pick up this gun and shoot you,” Mitch said through gritted teeth.

“Actually I was gonna go with ‘it’s just a flesh wound’.” He tied a tight knot, making the other man wince. “Sorry, did that hurt?”

“No, I was just totally stunned that you watch Monty Python.”

“All the best people do.” Jackson grinned.

“What’s going on out there?” Jamie called. “Can I come out yet? Is it safe?”

“Safe is kind of a… relative term,” Mitch said as Jackson helped him up. “We have guns, if that helps.”

“I want you to know that I’m rolling my eyes at you right now,” she called. 

They heard furniture being dragged aside. The door opened an inch. Jamie’s pale face appeared in the crack, eyes peeking this way and that. Then she caught sight of Mitch – Jackson’s supporting arm around his shoulders, a bloodied shirt around his leg – and flew out of the room.

*****

Mitch slammed into the wall as Jamie threw herself at him. But he barely felt the thud of impact as her arms wound around his neck, and when she kissed him – hard and hot and everything he’d dreamed about in the long, dark months since the plane crash – the dangerous world around them might as well not have existed. 

“I’m not dead,” she sobbed, wrenching her lips away from his to bury her face against his shoulder. “I’m not dead, Mitch, I feel fine…”

“Jackson was right,” he said, lifting her chin so he could cup her face in his hands. “All the best people really _do_ watch Monty Python.”

Jamie couldn’t answer, her throat blocked by tears and laughter. 

“It’s good to see you again,” Jackson said with a broad grin, clapping a hand on her shoulder. 

Chloe said something inaudible in French, tears in her eyes as she pulled Jamie into a hug. 

“Hate to break up the reunion,” Mitch said, his face pale and sweating with pain, “but I’m kinda bleeding here.”

“You’re right.” Jackson was all business again. “Let’s get the leopard, get the others, and get the hell out of Dodge.”

*****

Abe and Jari were waiting in the garage when Jackson, Mitch, Chloe and Jamie entered. Jari was pushing the garage door open while Abe was hotwiring the Jeep. The leopard, Irniq, was out cold and lashed unceremoniously to the roof of the vehicle. 

“Jamie!” Abe exclaimed, his face lighting up. “It is very good to see you alive!”

“Yup, getting that a lot today,” she laughed as she climbed into the Jeep. “All I can say is that rumours of my death were greatly exaggerated.”

*****

As Jari drove them back to his fishing boat, Jamie handed Chloe the sat phone she’d brought with her. She made a string of calls. 

“I called in a few favours,” she explained when she was done. “A US Navy cruiser is coming to Jari’s island to pick us up. Let the whales try to sink _that!”_


	4. R&R&Rats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Safe now on a military cruiser, the reunited team enjoy some well-deserved R&R. They meet Lieutenant Kazuko Wilson, their military liaison.   
> The journey goes smoothly until the vermin on board conspire to free the tranquilised leopard, and the cruiser is attacked by a pod of whales.

They left Jari on his island – he was well equipped to defend himself against any animal attacks, and was unwilling to leave his home – and were met by a squad of armed soldiers on the shore. There they got on a speedboat and boarded the cruiser without incident. 

“What’s going to happen now?” Jamie asked Chloe as they were led aboard.

“We’re sailing back to the States, where we will travel under armed escort to D.C,” Chloe explained. “There we will be fully de-briefed. I suggest you use the time between now and then to rest. I know I shall.” 

Her eyes flicked to Jackson. Seeing the direction of her gaze, Jamie smiled, but her expression soon clouded.

“Am I… ah… are the Feds still after me?”

“The matter has been settled.” Chloe put a companionable arm around her shoulder. “You have been legally exonerated. Ben Schaffer was receiving regular cash payments from an employee at Reiden Global.”

Jamie felt as if a weight had been removed. But she’d still shot and killed another human being… and whatever her reasons, she knew a stain like that wouldn’t come out so easily.

*****

Later, they were ushered into the Medical Bay for assessment. Chloe, Jackson and Abe were treated quickly. They had numerous scratches from being washed up on a beach, and deeper wounds from the eagle attacks. These were cleaned and dressed. The three were then shown to private berths on the ship.

Mitch and Jamie stayed longer. A Naval medic studied the scars she’d acquired from the plane crash – in particular the big scar on her thigh where she’d been impaled by wreckage – and declared the wounds to have healed well.

“The guy who hauled me out of the ocean really looked after me,” she explained, a lump in her throat. She looked away from the medic, tears stinging her eyes. “And now he’s dead.”

“Sorry to hear that, ma’am. You’re good to go.”

She slid off the examination table and grabbed her clothes, ducking behind the privacy screen. She exchanged the shapeless blue hospital gown for shapeless naval sweats. When she came out she’d regained her composure.

“Where’s Mitch?” she demanded. “Mitchell Morgan?”

“End of the corridor, ma’am.”

“Thanks.” 

Jamie left the room and pushed open the indicated door. Mitch was sitting on an examination table in his shirt, boxers, and nothing else. Another medic was patiently cleaning the wolf bite.

“Maybe you wanna knock next time?” Mitch said, his voice thin with pain. But the genuine smile on his face took the sting out of his words. 

The wound was ugly, the flesh mangled and bloody. She felt a stab of guilt. He’d hurt himself trying to save her.

“What, and miss the sight of Mitch Morgan getting his legs out?” she said, visibly pulling herself together.

“Ma’am, you shouldn’t really be in here,” the medic warned.

“I got rescued from a plane crash in the ocean and spent the last three months on an animal-infested island,” Jamie said, lacing each syllable with sweet venom. “I think that’s given me the right to go wherever I damn well please, don’t you think?”

“What she said,” Mitch added, waving a hand for emphasis. 

“Alright.” The medic shrugged. “Hope you’re not squeamish.”

*****

Later a Navy Ensign escorted them to their rooms.

“Your friends are right next door,” he explained, pointing to rooms on either side of theirs. “There’s a mess hall over there.” He pointed to another door. “Get some rest and eat when you’re ready.”

“I feel as if I could sleep for a week,” Mitch groaned as the ensign left them to it. 

“I, uh, I could help you get settled?” Jamie ventured.

Mitch paused on the threshold. He took his glasses off, cleaned them on his sweatshirt, and put them back on.

“Sure,” he said. “I’d like that.”

*****

Irniq, the leopard, had been secured somewhere in the bowls of the ship. He’d just devoured a huge piece of meat, guaranteed Reiden Global free. Now he paced the confines of his cage, restless and angry. Two white-coated military scientists, a man and a woman, stood in front of his cage and watched him.

“You really think this animal holds the key to ending the Beast Rebellion?” the man asked, glancing at the clipboard in his hands.

“This leopard may very well be the only creature in the _world_ not tainted by Reiden Global products,” the woman replied. “Once we get him back to base we can sedate him and start doing stem cell extractions.”

“How much do you think we’ll need?”

“Hard to say.” She shrugged. “Jackson Oz’s dispersal method calls for the vaccine to be injected in a host animal. That animal is then fed on by mosquitos, who spread it to other animals, and then lay their eggs in water.”

The male scientist looked at the leopard, his expression softening.

“Sorry, little buddy. I think we’re going to have to drain you dry.”

*****

Chloe was stretched out on her bed, fully dressed and unable to sleep, when she heard a knock at her door. 

“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” Jackson said when she opened it. 

“We have all undergone serious physical exertions over the last thirty-six hours,” she said, holding the door wide to let him in. “You’d think our bodies would welcome the opportunity to sleep.”

“Our bodies would.” He closed the door. “Our brains are still waiting for the next attack.”

“So how do we tell our brains that we are safe?”

Jackson paused a moment, letting his eyes play over her face. Even in unflattering sweats she was still beautiful. Her blonde hair, unbound now and falling around her shoulders in a soft wave, framed a face with exquisite lines.

“I can think of a few ways,” he said, closing the distance between them. 

Chloe met him. His arms curled around her waist, hers around his neck, and their kiss seemed to go on forever.

*****

Abe was too wired to sleep. He found his way to the mess hall across the corridor. He had expected it to be empty, but instead he saw a petite Asian woman helping herself to food. Army combats, not Navy. She turned as he entered.

“Ah, you would be Abraham Kenyatta?”

“Call me Abe.”

“Abe it is, then.” She brought her food to the table nearest him and put her tray down. 

“Lieutenant Kazuko Wilson.” She pronounced her first name with the barely-audible _u_ , indicating that she spoke Japanese fluently. 

“A very great pleasure to meet you,” Abe said, a smile lightening his face. “May I dine with you?”

“Be my guest. You and your team will be seeing a lot more of me after we return to D.C.”

“While this idea intrigues me, I am compelled to ask why?”

“I command the soldiers on board, and I’m your Army liaison. You guys have done an incredible amount of legwork to get where you are today. With limited resources you identified the source of the problem – and found a vaccine.”

“And now it’s time for the Army to take over?” There was a hint of reserve in his voice.

“Now it’s time for the Army to _assist._ We can give you a full scientific team, military protection for any field work… if you need it, we can give it to you.”

“Will I be able to discuss this with my friends?”

“Of course. You’re all free to walk away at any time. But we would prefer to have your team’s insights on board.”

*****

Jamie helped Mitch hobble over to the bed. He sat awkwardly, face tight with pain, and lifted his leg onto the mattress. Jamie eased one of the pillows beneath his knee.

“The medic gave you pain pills,” Jamie said. “You should take them, get some rest.”

“You’re right, I probably should. Not going to, though.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re stubborn?”

“At least once a week. But Jamie, I wanted to keep a clear head for what I want to say to you.”

“I… I think I have a few things to say to you, too.” She sat on the edge of the bed, one leg bent under her and the other braced on the floor, so that she could face him. He scooted across to give her more room. “You first.”

“I don’t… uh… I don’t make speeches like this very often,” he began. “You remember that day in Kenya, in the hospital?”

Jamie nodded. Her expression was solemn, her eyes large, making her look younger than she was. More innocent. Mitch couldn’t look away from her.

“I told you how I’d shut myself off from my own pain for so long that I couldn’t handle anyone else’s. Then you came along, Jamie.” He jabbed a gentle finger at her. “You taught me that it was OK to feel. You saved me.”

“We never got to talk about that,” she whispered. 

“Yeah, a leopard bursting into the room kind of kills the conversation.” His smile was more of a grimace. “But I knew then – even before then – that I had… feelings for you. There, I said it.”

“I’d hoped you felt that way.” Her voice was low and husky. “That’s why I kissed you. Because I had feelings for you, too.”

“Then you had to go and die on me.” Mitch’s eyes glimmered with tears, and his voice was tight. “For three months I thought you were dead… and… I wanted to die, too.”

“No, Mitch…” Her small hand sought his, their fingers twining. She sniffed. Tears trickled down her cheeks.

“I lost you and I lost the vaccine. All of my hope just… gone. Like that. I went into bars every night, Jamie, and drank till I could barely walk. And you know how much I hate bars.”

“I know.” She wiped her face. 

“Aww, Jamie, don’t cry. No really, don’t cry, I can’t stand weeping women.”

She surprised and pleased him – with a watery giggle. 

“So now here we are. You’re not dead. So in case you die again, I’m just gonna lay it on the line. I… Jamie, I’m in love with you.”

“I’m not dead,” she agreed, her tears giving way to a dazzling smile. “And we have unfinished business.”

“Unfinished busin –”

She leaned forward and kissed him. Mitch deepened it, his hand reaching up to cup her face. He felt her fingers tugging at the hem of his sweatshirt. 

“I think I’m in love with you, too.”

“My leg…” he managed to gasp between kisses.

“Don’t worry about it.” She pulled her own sweatshirt over her head and threw it across the room, revealing that she was naked underneath. Mitch stared. “I’ll be gentle.”

*****

Irniq paced his cage, growling low in his throat. He didn’t like being caged. He didn’t like being on this great metal thing. He felt the vibration of the engines through the pads of his feet. 

Barely audible squeaks reached his ears. They pricked in reaction and he turned his head in that direction, triangulating the noise until he found the source – a single rat. 

Irniq watched, interested, as the rat scampered across the floor. It didn’t stop at the cage but instead scurried up, hooking its clawed feet into the wire mesh. 

The leopard sat on its haunches and waited. The rat went to work on the bolt that kept the cage closed, nimble paws working it out of the catch. 

The cage door swung open. Irniq padded out.

*****

Jackson, gasping for breath, fell back against the mattress. Chloe let out a contented sigh and snuggled against his side, arranging the thin blanket over them.

“Now my brain feels sleepy,” she commented, letting her hand play over his chest. Jackson put his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling.

“That was… d’you know what, I’m way too tired to think of words to say how damned good that was.”

“Simple is always best.”

“What will you do next?” he asked. “I mean, when the Beast Rebellion is over.”

“Eh…” She shrugged. “I want to fly to Paris, try to make amends with my sister.”

“Have you forgiven her for stealing your fiancé?” If Jackson had had a brother – and that brother had stolen his girl – especially if that girl was Chloe! – he wasn’t sure that he could be so forgiving. 

“There is… there is something I haven’t told you,” she said haltingly. 

Jackson shifted onto his side, propping his head up with one hand so that he could look down into her face.

“You can tell me anything.”

“I’m frightened you will think less of me,” she whispered, not meeting his eyes.

“Chloe.” His fingers found her chin, lifted it. Finally she looked at him. “Tell me. I won’t judge. I promise.”

_“D’accord…_ but you may regret this. OK. You know that after I was arrested by FBI Agent Brannigan, his car was run off the road?”

“Yeah, you told us. You were kidnaped by two guys working for that creep Alves. He tortured you into giving us up… but you never did.” He bent to kiss her shoulder. “You never did.”

“The truth is that he did not torture _me._ ” Her face was taught. “He tortured my _sister_ and made me watch. I thought I hated her, Jackson, for what she did to me… but… what is the expression? ‘When the chips are down’? I realised I did not hate her. But I could not betray what you were doing, not even to spare her the pain.”

“My God, Chloe.” Jackson sank back against the bed. “I know you’re trained to withstand torture, but Natalie…”

“Nat is not. I let Alves’s man torture her, and I am damned.” She turned her face away. “There is not a day goes by where I do not wish that _I_ had been tortured, instead…”

Jackson gathered her close against him, wiping her tears with his thumb. 

“Listen, you did what you had to do. If you’d given up our location we’d never have got the leopard and Mitch wouldn’t have made the vaccine. Reiden would have won.” His kiss was gentle. “You helped save the world.”

“How can I make Nat understand that? When she suffered so badly, when _her_ world came to an end, how can I make her understand?”

There was something so vulnerable about Chloe now, Jackson thought, that he just wanted to hold her and make everything right. But he knew all too well that wishing something was different didn’t make it so. 

“It’ll take time,” he told her. “But I know she’ll forgive you.”

“Are you thinking about your father?”

“Guess you know me too well. I was thinking how, for years, we all thought he was nuts. Mom and me, his colleagues. He suffered, too. Not like your sister, but still…”

“Nobody believed him.” Now it was Chloe’s turn to offer comfort. “He knew the truth, and he tried so hard to get the word out, but nobody believed him. Until it was too late.”

“It’s _not_ too late. We’ve got the leopard, we can make the vaccine. Thanks to my father’s work it’s _not_ too late.”

*****

“I think you just killed me,” Mitch said, arms splayed wide. Jamie – laughing – sat back against the headboard, pulling the blanket around her.

“What a way to go, huh?”

“Where’d you get so much damned energy?”

“Try sitting on your ass for three months.”

“And when did you get this?” Mitch asked, tracing his fingers over the genie tattoo on her shoulder.

“That? Oh, years ago. One of many teenaged rebellions.”

“Jamie Campbell, a rebel. I can totally see that.”

He couldn’t keep his hands off her. Like a man stranded in the desert, she was his water, and he wanted all of her. His hand slid over her upper thigh.

She flinched away. He felt as if she’d punched him.

“Mitch, don’t…”

“I get it. Your scar.” He’d felt the thick, raised ridge on her skin where she’d been impaled by a twisted length of plane wreckage. “But Jamie, it’s a part of you.”

“An ugly part of me.”

“It’s just another mark on your skin.” He leaned over and kissed her shoulder. “Like the genie. It’s a roadmap of your life.”

“Yeah, the really sucky parts.”

“Hey, I got bit by a wolf,” he said. “Wanna play ‘mine’s worse than yours’? I spent the last couple months in an alcoholic pity party. Life’s too short to feel sorry for yourself.”

_“Excuse_ me?”

“I mean you’re _alive,_ Jamie. We’re both alive. We’ve still got all our arms and legs and most of our teeth. Whoever said the past is a foreign country was so right.”

“Well, listen to you, Mr. Upbeat.” 

“I mean it. We’ve been through so much, seen so much, but we’ve come out the other side as better people.”

“If I knew you hadn’t taken your pain meds, I’d say you were high.”

“Screw the meds. You’re here. That’s all I need.”

*****

When the five finally wound down enough to rest, they slept for hours. 

The leopard didn’t sleep. He explored. He didn’t like this moving metal box, but at least now he had room to really stretch his legs. The rat kept chittering at him. He found the rat interesting, so he followed it.

The whole place stank of human. His nostrils flared as air currents were pushed toward him, and a second later he heard it – the tread of feet. Irniq tensed, ready to leap.

A human rounded the corner. The leopard sprang, claws slashing. Irniq clamped his jaws around a throat. The man dropped and didn’t get up.

The rat was still chittering. Irniq, docile as a lamb, followed. 

*****

Jackson and his friends were roused from deep sleep when a massive thump reverberated through the ship. They dressed quickly and met in the hall. No one seemed surprised to see Chloe emerge with Jackson, and Jamie with Mitch.

“Did you make the earth move, Rafiki?” Abe laughed, clapping his friend on the shoulder. Jackson ducked away, embarrassed.

“Earth sure moved for me,” Mitch answered for him, “but not a movement of the literal kind. Whales again?”

“I thought the ship was too big to be overturned!” Chloe exclaimed.

“It should be,” a woman announced, stepping into the corridor from the mess hall. “I’m Lieutenant Kazuko Wilson, your military liaison. Hi, Abe.” She offered him a wide smile.

“Uh, you two know each other?” Jackson asked, eyebrows raised knowingly. 

“Yes, we are old friends,” he replied. “We met all of a few hours ago.”

“Come to the bridge. There’s something I want you all to see.”

*****

They followed Kazuko through grey, winding corridors and staircases that led – eventually – to the bridge. The ship rocked and shook.

“Captain.” Kazuko saluted.

“Lieutenant Wilson.” The Captain was an imposing figure with thick white hair and a lined face. “We’re ready to begin.”

“Are Army people supposed to salute Navy people?” Jamie whispered.

“No idea,” Mitch whispered back. “It _is_ his ship, though.”

“You guys, look!” Jackson called, peering through the long windows. “I think we’ve stumbled on to a whole pod of whales!”

The ocean all around them was awash with flicking tails, breaching blow holes and turbulent water.

“More like they’ve stumbled onto us,” Kazuko replied. “We caught them on sonar five miles away. They were actually swimming on a different course from us. Then something changed, and they came toward us.”

“Echolocation,” Jackson explained. “We, uh, we had a bad experience with a whale. It sank our boat.”

“Ready to deploy!” a man called from across the bridge.

“Deploy at will!” the Captain called back. He turned to Jackson and his people. “There’s nothing to worry about, even with a whole pod of blue whales –”

“You do realise they’re the largest mammal on Earth?” Mitch asked.

A massive shudder rocked the ship, the largest so far.

“What the hell was that?” Jamie demanded, clutching at Mitch.

“That was a depth charge, Miss Campbell.” The Captain was just a shade away from smug. “The US Navy lost a couple of warships until we hit on the idea.”

“Wow, you didn’t just blast them out of the sea,” Mitch muttered. 

“Contrary to popular belief, Mr. Morgan, we are not trigger happy.” The Captain’s smile was sharp and predatory. 

Another depth charge made them stagger. 

“How many are you going to release?” Chloe asked.

“As many as it takes to drive the whales away. From past experience they give up after five or six.”

“Captain!” A man ran onto the bridge, gasping for breath, blood smeared across his blue dress shirt. “The, uh, the cargo appears to have gotten out of its cage and has killed several crew members!”

“Why us?” Mitch muttered.

“Quit your whining,” Jamie said, poking him in the ribs. “At least we’ve still got our arms and legs, right?”

*****

Jackson, Abe and Kazuko patrolled the ship’s corridors, creeping along in single file. Jackson was on point.

“I’m not even gonna ask why a US Navy ship has got tranquilliser guns on board,” he whispered, crouching to examine a splash of blood at an intersection. “I’m just going to say, ‘thank you, Uncle Sam’, and shoot the leopard.”

“We still don’t know how it got out of its cage!” Kazuko exclaimed.

“Oh, that’s the easy part. This way.” He pointed to the right. The others followed.

“Easy?” Kazuko shook her head, clearly perplexed.

“He means it’s easy when you begin to understand how the animals are thinking now,” Abe explained. 

“The total extinction of humanity. That still doesn’t explain how the leopard got free.”

“He got free because something let him out,” Jackson said, glancing back over his shoulder. “Careful, there’s a body here.”

They stepped over the blood-stained body of a Naval officer. Irniq’s footprints – outlined in red – became clearer. 

“None of the crew would be so stupid as to let him out!” Kazuko said, outraged. 

“I said some _thing._ Not some _one.”_

“You mean… another animal opened that cage? But there are no others on board!”

“You haven’t spent much time on ships, have you, Lieutenant Wilson?”

“Call me Kazuko. And no, I haven’t.”

“There will be rats on this vessel. There might even be a sneaky cat or two. But mostly rats. They have small, nimble paws, and they can chew through pretty much anything.”

“You’re saying a rat opened the cage?”

Jackson looked over his shoulder, nodded. “Yup.”

“This does not feel right,” Abe murmured. “Jackson, wait.”

“What d’you mean, it doesn’t feel right?”

“When was the last time an animal left you such a clear trail to follow?”

An enraged snarl filled the air. Jackson leapt back just as the leopard exploded from a side corridor, fangs barred. The animal knocked him down, claws raking his clothes and exposed arms.

Abe whipped his tranquilliser gun around and shot the animal. It turned to glare at him, teeth inches from Jackson’s throat, and galloped away. Abe squeezed off one more shot.

“Rafiki!” Abe said, coming to his friend’s side.

“Get the leopard,” he gasped, hands clamped over the deep claw marks. Blood oozed between his fingers. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine!”

“I’ll stay with him,” Kazuko said. “Go!”

Abe gave him a last look and ran off.

“This is Lieutenant Kazuko Wilson requesting urgent medical assistance,” she said into the walkie-talkie she unclipped from her belt. 

“On our way, Lieutenant,” came the crackly reply.

Kazuko helped Jackson into a sitting position. 

“I think they’re just superficial wounds,” he said, peeking beneath his bloody hands. 

“We’ll let the medics decide that.” Her tone was stern, but then it softened. “Why did he call you ‘Rafiki’?”

“It’s a Swahili word that means ‘friend’,” Jackson replied. “What, you never watched the Lion King?”

*****

Abe, Jackson and Kazuko watched the unconscious leopard. Jackson closed the door and latched it.

“We need someone on guard here at all times,” he told Kazuko. “Preferably more than one person.”

“I will tell them to keep an eye out for rats.”

*****

On the bridge, Chloe, Mitch and Jamie waited as the depth charges were dropped. 

“I hate this,” Jamie said, staring out of the window. “I hate knowing that everywhere I go, the animals are trying to kill us.”

“Now you know how they feel,” Mitch replied. She turned to glare at him.

“We have spent too long at the top of the tree,” Chloe said. “Safe in our assumption that we were untouchable. Maybe it’s time we were toppled.”

“Anyone would think that _you’d_ spent the last three months in isolation,” Jamie said. “Who says we _have_ to give in to this? Nature’s all about fighting. I say we fight to keep that top spot.”

“Captain, the whales are leaving!” someone called.

“Good job. Resume course.”

“There may be a third option,” Mitch said. Both women turned to glare at him. “Don’t forget Evan Lee Hartley. Jackson’s father was trying to help him evolve, just like the animals.”


	5. Little Green Triads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Safe in Walker Air Force Base – AKA Area 51 – the team are given their own base of operations, where they meet with Chloe’s government contact Amelia Sage. The origins of the mother cell are discussed and production of the vaccine will shortly begin.  
> Mitch, cautious now that the leopard has been recovered, arranges for a tracking chip to be injected in the animal. Shortly after this occurs they learn that a shipment of mother cell en route to the base has been stolen by Triads… and then the base itself is hit by an invasion force.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Walker Air Force Base.”

They’d come ashore in Delaware and been driven, through several states – and several days – via armed convoy. They’d stopped each night in secure Army bases, each one as nondescript as the last. 

Jackson and Mitch used the time to recover. While they’d all sustained injuries during Jamie’s rescue, theirs had been the worst; Mitch’s wolf bite would leave an unattractive scar, while Jackson’s numerous lacerations – eagle _and_ leopard – were narrow but deep.

“Wait, what?” Jamie said, turning around in her seat. “ _Walker_ Air Force Base? You’re kidding me, right?”

She, Mitch and Chloe were in the back of one armoured carrier, while Abe, Jackson and Kazuko were in another. The leopard was secured in a third.

“That’s what the sign said,” Mitch replied.

“Well I’ll be damned. This place is like a reporter’s Holy Grail. Bet you know all about what goes on in this place, right?” she finished, turning back in her seat to face Chloe.

“The DGSE and the US Secret Services are not known for their spirit of co-operation,” Chloe replied, smiling. “I know no more than you.”

“Uh, would someone like to fill me in on the big mystery?” Mitch demanded, irritated.

“Where are we, Mitch?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, too distracted by her expression. Her eyes sparkled and her mouth was tilted in a natural, excited grin. It was the first time he’d seen that look on her face since her return.

“We’re, uh, in New Mexico,” he replied, dragging his attention back to the conversation.

“And what town did we just drive through?”

“No idea. I was napping.”

“Roswell, Mitch. We’ve just driven through _Roswell.”_

He sat up straight. “What, this is _Area 51?_ They brought us to _Area 51?”_

“Sir, that site does not exist,” the army driver called from the front.

“Oh, that’s rubbish and you know it,” Jamie said. “Everyone knows it’s real. So what you got inside, huh? Aliens? Couple of spacecraft?”

“Ma’am…”

“If you say ‘that site doesn’t exist’ again I’ll smack you around the back of the head,” she snapped.

“What my friend means to say,” Mitch said, leaning forward and catching the driver’s eye in the rear view mirror, “is that, given the government’s inability to play nicely with others, she’s not gonna believe a word you say.”

“Duly noted, sir. Please sit back in your seat.”

Mitch held his hands up and sank back.

“So what do you think is inside?” Jamie asked Chloe. “You think they’ve got hangars full of little green men? Breaking a story like that…”

“Jamie, the only thing that place is going to hide is us.” Mitch decided it was time to nip her excitement in the bud, even if he loved how it brightened her whole face. “One leopard, two tour guides, a veterinary pathologist, a journalist, one DGSE operative, and a whole bunch of Army guys. Emphasis on ‘whole bunch’.”

“Even if they were holding anything of note here,” Chloe interjected, “we would be kept well away from it.”

“We’ve broken into places before…”

“Yes, let’s take a moment to remember how brilliantly things went when we broke into that zoo and a man was _killed.”_

Jamie deflated, all her newfound energy dissipating. 

“You’re right. It’s a stupid idea. Forget I said anything.”

“Cheer up, kiddo,” Mitch said, holding her in a brief one-armed hug that made Chloe smile, “you kept that damned leopard safe until we could find you.”

“Yeah, and Aippaq got killed.” Jamie’s face fell even further. “Some protector I am.”  
“Bigger picture. You’re going to save the world.”

“I didn’t save his world though, did I?”

Mitch had no answer to that. 

*****

“What’s going to happen now?” Jackson asked as he and Abe studied the Air Force Base. He felt uneasy here; this was military territory – Kazuko’s territory – and although she’d been quick to assure him that they were guests and could leave any time, the high fences and multiple check points were beginning to make him feel like a prisoner. And they’d only been here a few minutes.

“We’re taking you to meet with Amelia Sage. She’ll answer all your questions.”

“I remember her. The government contact, right?”

“That’s right. She’ll discuss the next stage of the process with you.”

*****

They were shown to what would be their new living quarters for the foreseeable future. Since they’d lost their luggage in the shipwreck, Uncle Sam had allowed them to requisition whatever they needed. After a shower, a meal and a change of clothes, they were shown into a large meeting room. Amelia Sage – a blonde, elegant woman in her early fifties – was already waiting for them. Kazuko entered last and closed the door.

“So what’s happening?” Jackson asked, watching them both with hands on hips. The others filed around the table and took seats, but he remained standing. 

“As you know, we’ve spent the last few months trying to find an effective delivery system for the vaccine,” Amelia explained. “Once we discovered it would become ineffective if dispersed through the air, we had to go back to the drawing board. That’s where you come in, Mr. Oz.” 

“Are they ready? Have you got the mosquitos ready?”

“Wait, mosquitoes?” Jamie asked. “How is that going to work?”

“We vaccinate a couple of animals,” Jackson explained. “Then mosquitos feed on ‘em. That means they’re now carrying the vaccine. They feed on other animals –”

“And the vaccine spreads!” Jamie exclaimed. “Oh, Jackson, I’d kiss you if I didn’t think Chloe would kick my ass!”

Jackson grinned. “Well, if you ever get that urge, don’t hold back,” he teased.

From her seat beside him, Chloe kicked him. He winced and sat. Mitch punched his arm.

“The mosquitos _are_ ready,” Amelia continued as if the interruption hadn’t happened. “Now we have the leopard, all we need is a shipment of mother cell –”

“Wait, you mean you don’t already have some?” Mitch spluttered.

“Mr. Morgan, the mother cell takes time to mine.” She looked down her nose at him. “The utmost security and discretion is required both to mine and transport this substance. When you confirmed the leopard was still alive I called in an order. It’s due to arrive later today.”

“Well, all right then. Guess I’ll just ride my high horse off into the sunset.”

“So where is this mine?” Jamie asked.

“Journalistic tendencies die hard, yes?” Amelia seemed more amused than annoyed. “You must have missed the ‘security’ and ‘discretion’ part of my last comment.”

Jamie shrugged. “Can’t fault a girl for trying.”

*****

Mitch asked to see the leopard. Kazuko led him through interminable corridors – beige this time instead of grey – but just as nondescript.

Irniq was being kept in a custom built cage. He paced back and forth, restless, and snarled when he saw Mitch.

“I love you too,” he said. “How’d you like your new pad? Bit bare on the old home comforts, huh?”

Irniq growled.

“It’s OK, I have that effect on people too.”

“Why did you wish to see him?” Kazuko asked.

“I spent the last three months thinking he was dead, that we’d lost the only chance of a vaccine. Then we went through a couple days of hell to get him back. I want to put a tracking chip in him.”

“We’re deep in the heart of Wilson Air Force base!” Kazuko was outraged. “You honestly think he’s going to go missing again?”

“I think it’s better to be safe than sorry.” He was impassive.

“Alright. If you really think it’s necessary. But I think you’re over-acting.”

“Thank you so much.” He treated her to the most sarcastic smile he could muster.

*****

Amelia Sage led Jackson, Chloe and Abe into a large room. There was a wide, sturdy table in the middle, laden with boxes and packets of papers.

“What’s all this?” Jackson asked.

“Your father’s research,” Amelia explained. “I sent a team to retrieve it. Though we have a means of mass-producing a vaccine, there may be something of interest in his notes.”

Jackson immediately began riffling through the boxes, taking off lids and pulling out files.

“What are you looking for?” Chloe asked.

“Anything about Evan Lee Hartley,” he replied. “Anything he may have worked on.”

“Or anything that was done to him,” Abe added, stepping forward to help.

“You are still trying to understand what your father did to him,” Chloe said. She, too, began searching through the boxes.

“I feel like this is important,” Jackson said. “Maybe even more important than the vaccine.”

“You are talking about human evolution?”

“Be careful, Jackson,” Abe cautioned. “Evan Lee Hartley behaved like an animal when we encountered him in the woods in Louisiana. It is possible we may be dealing with human _de_ volution.”

*****

When Mitch and Kazuko went to see the leopard, and Amelia led the others to search through Robert Oz’s research, Jamie slipped away. They’d brought her to _Area 51_ and they expected her _not_ to explore? This could be the biggest story of her career. Never mind the fact that she’d babysat the leopard who was going to save the world; Jamie Campbell was going to be famous for finding aliens. 

She made it through several unmanned, unlocked doors with no problem. She had no real idea of where she was going. Of course there were no handy maps on the wall; this was a secret facility, after all. 

She spotted a soldier standing in front of a door at the same time he saw her.

“Can I help you, ma’am?”

Damn. She was just going to have to wing it. 

“I was just talking to Amelia Sage,” she said, turning on the charm. “She was going to give me a guided tour, but she got called away. She said I could just go ahead and start without her, she’d catch me up.” 

OK. That sounded lame. She must be slipping.

“Ma’am, this is high-security facility.” The solider was unimpressed. “There are no ‘guided tours’. I’ll call a colleague to escort you back to your designated area.”

“Spoilsport,” she muttered. “Just one glimpse of a UFO?”

*****

“…ow! Come on, there’s no need to be so damned rough! Don’t you know I survived a plane crash?”

Kazuko was escorting Mitch back to what she’d termed the Research Room when they heard a commotion. Rounding a corner, they saw a soldier hustling along a very irate Jamie.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Mitch said, closing the distance between them. “Get your hands off her!”

“Sir, please return to your designated area.”

“Let me _go!”_ Jamie wrenched her arm out of the soldier’s grip. “It’s not like I’m about to run away!”

“Soldier, report!” Kazuko snapped.

“Civilian was trying to get through a restricted-access door, ma’am.”

“Aw, Jamie, you didn’t…” Mitch looked at her and shook his head.

“Area 51. Aliens. Do I need to say anything else?”

“Well, you could try apologising.”

“For what? This place is payed for with taxpayer’s money! And I’m a taxpayer!”

“Jamie.” Mitch’s arm snaked around her shoulders. “Let’s just apologise to the nice Army man for trying to find out state secrets, and go investigate some of our own, huh? What do you say?”

“I say stop talking to me like I’m a baby,” she grumped. Then, her expression lifting, “What secrets? What are you guys working on?”

Mitch gently turned her and led her away from the soldier. 

“Journalists,” he said in an aside to Kazuko. “You just gotta know how to talk to them.”

“I heard that, Mitch.”

*****

“So what’re you guys looking at?” Jamie asked as she breezed into the Research Room.

“Where have you two been?” Jackson countered.

_“I_ was putting a tracking chip in the leopard. Just, you know, just in case. Jamie, why don’t you tell them what _you_ were doing.” His voice dripped sarcasm.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on my side now?” she hissed, jabbing him in the ribs.

“Let me guess,” Chloe said, smiling. “You were trying to find a way into a place where you were not supposed to be, yes?”

“Maybe.”

Abe startled them all with a deep, booming belly laugh.

“I love it! They bring us here to stop the Beast Rebellion, and you are interested in _little green men!”_ He wiggled his fingers and laughed again.

“Laugh at me again and we’re gonna fall out, mister,” Jamie said. “Just think about it, OK? It’s become normal to us that a supposedly ‘natural mineral’ called the mother cell somehow speeds up animal evolution, and now they all want to kill us. But aliens? Hold the phone, Ramone! Girl’s gone crazy!”

“Actually, she’s got a point.” Jackson held up a finger. “Statistically speaking, there must be alien life in other galaxies. Who’s to say the military aren’t holding something here?”

“What, you buy into all that abductee crap?” Mitch asked, sceptical.

“Hey, I’m part of the _X-Files_ generation. What’s happening now could have come straight out of that.”

*****

They were sifting through piles and piles of paperwork when Amanda Sage burst into the room.

“We’ve lost the mother cell,” she said, straight to the point. “The shipment was ambushed out in the desert. We put trackers in the crate before it left the mine, standard procedure. We’re preparing a recovery team.”

“Someone _stole_ it?” Jackson said, incredulous. “They just swooped in and ambushed an armed convoy? Who’d have the balls to do that?”

“We don’t have that intelligence at the moment –”

“Chinese,” Mitch interrupted.

“Russians,” Jamie added.

“Let us not forget our good friends in North Korea,” Abe finished.

“They want to manufacture their own vaccine,” Chloe suggested.

“The US government has made it perfectly clear that we’re willing to share the vaccine,” Amanda explained, frustrated.

“Whoever these people are, they probably want to hold the rest of the world to ransom.”

“I want to go with them,” Jamie demanded. “With the recovery team.”

“What?” Mitch said. “Are you mad?”

“No, Miss Campbell, that won’t be possible.”

“Listen, someone has to document all this! All this crazy stuff is going down and no one’s recording it. We’re right at the heart of this, all of us, and we have a responsibility to pass on the truth to the next generation.”

Amanda stared at her for a minute, relaxed.

“I can see why you became a journalist,” she said. “Alright, you have permission to accompany the recovery team –”

“Yay!”

_“-providing_ you obey all instructions _and_ stay in the vehicle when the fighting starts.”

“You’re seriously going to let her go?” Mitch flared.

“Hey, I’m in the room!”

“The rest of you can’t think this is a good idea?” Mitch appealed to the others.

“I think we all have a part to play in this,” Jackson said. “And Jamie’s right, this _should_ be documented in some way.”

That was when the first explosion hit.

*****

The Research Room echoed with multiple exclamations. 

“Stay here,” Amanda ordered, wrenching the door open, “and lock this behind me! Don’t open it until I come back!”

“What’s happening?” Jamie asked when she was gone. Jackson locked the door. “Are we under _attack?”_

“Who’d be stupid enough to attack Area 51?” Jackson replied, though he didn’t sound sincere. He noticed that Mitch and Jamie – probably unconsciously – had moved so that the veterinary pathologist stood protectively in front of her. It was kind of sweet.

“We already know the mother cell has been stolen,” Chloe said, terse. “And now the leopard is here. The question should be who would be stupid enough _not_ to attack?”

Another explosion made the room shake.

“We’ll be perfectly safe in here,” Kazuko said. “We’re under multiple layers of protection. There’s no way anyone could get this far.”

The loudest explosion so far made them instinctively duck. They heard the rattle of gunfire.

“That, uh, that sounded pretty damned close,” Mitch said.

“There are armed men in the hallway!” Abe called, peering through the glass window in the door. “And they are not US soldiers!”

“Come away from the door,” Kazuko ordered. “Now! Everyone!”

They rushed to comply, making sure they were out of sight of the window.

“How did they even know the leopard was here?” Jamie whispered.

“Maybe they hacked the Pentagon or something,” Mitch hissed. “How should I know?”

The gunfire stopped. Jackson let out a breath, beginning to hope that the attack was over. He inched forward.

That was when the door exploded.

*****

Jackson was on the floor. He couldn’t quite remember how he’d got there. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t see straight. He saw people – or at least, the blurry, indistinct shapes of figures – but he couldn’t seem to get a handle on what was happening. 

He clutched his head. Screams. He could hear screams. Angry male voices. Then the meaty sound of flesh hitting flesh, grunts of pain… then nothing.

Blackness filled his vision. He knew it was a bad idea to pass out – a monumentally bad idea – but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

*****

When he came around his head was throbbing, but at least he could hear and see properly. 

“Rafiki,” was the first thing he heard as he massaged his temples. “We are in trouble. Big, big trouble.”

“What happened?” He eased himself into a sitting position, wincing as the flickering light hurt his eyes.

The Research Room was a mess. The door was a smashed ruin. All the boxes and files they’d been looking through were gone, and the table itself bore burn marks. Dirty black marks – smoke? – stained the walls and ceiling.

Jackson noticed that Abe was injured. There was a jagged gash on his forehead, still bleeding sluggishly. 

“The leopard is gone. Whoever is behind this attack sent a small army to penetrate the base. They took the leopard and all of your father’s research.”

_“What?”_ This was a disaster. When humanity was on the brink of salvation – or destruction! – someone always had to go and mess it up! “Where’s Chloe? Was she hurt? Is Jamie OK? Mitch?”

“They took Jamie and Chloe.” Abe looked as if he was about to cry. Jackson had never seen such a look on the big man’s face, not once. “Kazuko was knocked out trying to protect us. Mitch… I have never seen such rage on a man’s face, nor such violence, but it was not enough.”

Jackson took another glance around the room. This time he saw the shadowed forms of bodies – Kazuko and Mitch, out cold and covered in blood.

“They took the leopard,” Jackson said, horror and incredulity making his voice dull. “They took the research. And they took the women.” He scrambled to his feet, unsteady, wavering. “We’re going to get them back.” There was iron certainty in his voice. He wiped blood from his face. “Whatever we have to do, we’re going to get them _back.”_


	6. Search And Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mitch, Jackson and Abe are determined to rescue Chloe and Jamie, who’ve been taken along with Jackson’s father’s research notes, the leopard and the mother cell. Abe goes with Kazuko and a team of soldiers to recover the mother cell, while Jackson and Mitch accompany a larger team set to recover the women, notes and leopard, following the tracking chip.  
> Chloe and Jamie – bound and on board a rusting old ship – work to free themselves before it’s too late.

“Abe said we were hit by a small army. A small _army!_ How the hell did that many people go unnoticed?”

Jackson was striding after Amanda Sage, following her as she hustled across a churned-up yard. The buildings closest to them were burned and broken, walls smashed and corridors exposed. It was carnage.

“I don’t have time to discuss this now,” Amanda snapped. “In case you hadn’t noticed I have another recovery team to organise.”

“I want to be on that team.”

“Mr. Oz, you will go back inside and sit your ass down.”

“And do what? Twiddle my thumbs?”

“Your team is too valuable to risk in the field! Or what’s _left_ of your team!”

“You listen to me.” Jackson, furious, grabbed Amanda’s arm to make her stop. He yanked her to face him. “This is supposed to be one of the most highly protected places outside the Pentagon and the goddamn White House, yet you still got hit. You can’t protect us here so let us go out and actually _help!”_

“Fine!” Amanda ground out. “Get your people together.”

*****

Jackson, Mitch, Abe and Kazuko met in the yard. Two teams of soldiers were already gearing up, small units of four that could sneak in and out quickly and quietly. Kazuko had found the non-combatants fatigues so they wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

“Mitch and I are gonna go after the bastards who took Chloe and Jamie,” Jackson said, aggressive. “Abe, you and Kazuko can track down that mother cell.”

“We will bring it back,” Abe agreed. Looking at his friend’s hard, set expression – and Mitch’s bruised and swollen face – he had no inclination to argue. “Good luck, Rafiki. Be careful. Bring them home.” He pulled Jackson into a quick, hard hug, then surprised Mitch by doing the same. 

“Do not do anything foolish,” he murmured into Mitch’s ear. “I know you have become a desperate man.”

“I can’t lose her again. I can’t.”

*****

Jamie and Chloe were in the back of a moving truck, wedged in among boxes and crates. They could see the packed, hard desert sand rolling away behind them.

“So where do you think all these soldier guys came from?” Jamie asked, in between gnawing at the plastic cable tie binding her wrists. There was another around her ankles. Chloe was similarly bound. They both bore the scratches, cuts and bruises of a prolonged struggle.

“I am more concerned with where they are taking us. You are going to break your teeth on that.”

“You’re DGSE. You must know some Secret Service trick to get out of these stupid cuffs.” Her words trailed off on a gusty sigh. Fresh tears tracked through the dirt and dust on her face.

“I am sorry, Jamie. The best thing we can do right now is pay attention to where we are going.”

“I couldn’t even see their faces because they were all wearing balaclavas…” 

“They are Chinese. I heard them talking to each other.”

“You recognise Chinese?”

“I speak five languages. Mandarin is one of those.”

“Do you think we’ve been taken by the Triad or something?”

“It is possible. They already have excellent connections in this country. Though it is also possible that the Chinese government is working in conjunction with the Triad.”

“Woah. That’s like the Mafia taking the President out for dinner.”

“I’m sure that would make an excellent by-line.” Chloe managed to raise a smile. 

Jamie grimaced. “I was kind of an ass back there, wasn’t I? Banging on and on about Area 51 and aliens when we’ve got the biggest story in human existence right in front of us.”

“You are a journalist. What is the phrase? You have to ‘follow your nose’.” She leaned forward and whispered, “I would have loved to have seen little green men.”

*****

“You have no idea how glad I am you put that tracking chip in the leopard,” Jackson said as they sped through the New Mexico desert. 

“Oh believe me, I know.” Mitch was deadpan. 

Jackson could sense that his friend was struggling to hold himself together. It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that Mitch had fallen in love with Jamie, had been in love with her since the plane crash – and probably earlier. He’d got to know Mitch pretty well since they’d first met, and he knew he was the kind of guy who was used to keeping his feelings buttoned down tight. Now – when he’d finally begun to open up – he’d had something precious ripped away from him. He didn’t know how to cope, so he’d locked himself down tight again. If this all ended badly, he didn’t think that Mitch would ever recover.

Of course, Jackson knew exactly how he felt. 

He’d gone to Africa years ago, fleeing the memories of his father and his tarnished reputation. He’d been out there a long time. It was where he’d met Abe, his best friend and the closest thing he had to a brother. He’d avoided romantic entanglements, for the most part; not through deliberate choice, but rather due to lack of motivation. He’d taken plenty of pretty girls on safari. He just hadn’t felt any connection to them.

Then he’d rescued Chloe from that lion attack, and everything had changed.

Chloe Tousignant was intelligent. Insightful. Protective. Her beauty was of the fey variety, all cheekbones and delicate lines, a beauty that belied her inner strength. The attraction between them had been growing for months… though they hadn’t had time for more than a few stolen kisses over the last three months. She’d been working hard with Amanda Sage and her team, getting the specifics of the vaccine in place. He’d been working on the transport mechanism. There’d been no time for anything deeper. 

Then Jamie’s rescue had finally allowed them to take that final step. Was he in love with her? Jackson analysed the idea. He was attracted to her. Admired her qualities. Saw her shortcomings. Yeah, if anything could be called love, that was it. 

And now she was gone. Damn.

“When did you first realise you were in love with Jamie?” he asked.

“You seriously wanna talk about this now?”

“Nothing much else to do until we get to where we’re going.”

“Alright. Would it shut you up if I said I was standing beneath a rainbow watching puppies frolic with unicorns?”

“Unicorns?” Jackson laughed. “I’m serious, man.”

Mitch let out a weary sigh. “I think I suspected a couple days after we first met.”

“That soon?”

“I said suspected, not knew. There’s a world of difference.”

“What happened?”

“We went to Folsom, her hometown. She took me to see her mother’s grave. She wanted me to see why she was so driven over bringing Reiden Global to justice.”

“Her mother died from cancer, right?”

“Yeah. The farmers all used pesticides from Reiden. When Jamie took me to that grave, I, uh…” He swallowed, looked away. “I started to see beneath the surface. Saw the person she really was, rather than what she wanted people to see.” He cleared his throat. “Enough of my misery. Hit me with yours. Tell me when you first realised that _you_ were in love with _Chloe.”_

“Mitch, I don’t know…”

“Come on, Jackson. Quid quo pro.”

“Honestly? I don’t know. I don’t think there was one clear, defining moment when I thought, _I think I want to marry this girl.”_

“Whoa, we’re talking marriage now?”

“Yeah. I guess we are.”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit, well, _fast?”_

“We’re living fast, Mitch. We could die fast. We need to hold onto everything we can get.”

“Maybe we’re not so far removed from the animals after all.”

“So, you and Jamie. Will we hear wedding bells soon?”

Mitch covered his eyes with one hand, dragged it down his face. When he removed it whatever slight levity Jackson had inspired was gone.

“I tried marriage once. Didn’t work out so well. And aren’t we being just a tad previous, considering Chloe and Jamie were _kidnapped?”_

*****

Kazuko and a solider lay on the brow of a ridge. Kazuko looked through a set of high-powered binoculars, then handed them to the soldier on her other side.

“Targets are in sight.” 

Three vehicles were travelling across the hard-packed desert below them, heading for the rapidly vanishing horizon. It was almost dark.

“Shall we move to intercept, ma’am?” the soldier asked. “We have the element of surprise.”

“Three of them against one of us.” She handed him the binoculars. “I don’t like those odds.”

“What is happening?” Abe asked, lowering himself to the ground beside them. 

“We’re catching up,” Kazuko explained. “But we need to get ahead of them. Then we can deploy the stingers.”

“Stingers?”

“Studded strips you can throw across the road. Rips up tyres pretty good.”

“Forgive me, but I do not see any roads here.”

“Ma’am?” the soldier said. “We brought a rocket launcher.”

“Too risky,” Abe interrupted. “We cannot risk destroying the mother cell.”

“Agreed,” Kazuko replied. “Maybe we could call in some local law enforcement, catch them in a pincer movement –”

“They’ve stopped, Lieutenant!”

“What?” She snatched the binoculars back. “Why have they stopped?”

“May I have a look?”

“Look all you want in the Jeep. If they’ve stopped, we can catch up to them.”

*****

The driver put his foot down.

“Estimated time to engage is two minutes, ma’am,” a soldier called from the front of the vehicle. 

“I do not like this,” Abe murmured. “Perhaps we should be asking _why_ these people have stopped, when they were in such a rush to get away.”

“Ever heard the expression ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’?” Kazuko asked.

“You should _always_ look a gift horse in the mouth. Because sometimes it might have a lion’s teeth.”

They heard the rapid-fire sound of automatic weapons being discharged. Kazuko put the binoculars to her eyes again.

“They’re… they’re being attacked!”

“Am I the only one who does not seem to be surprised by this? Give me those!”

The scene came into view through military grade, high resolution, night vision binoculars. The world came into crystal-clear focus.

The three vehicles had stopped in a loose line. Grey-green steam billowed above the hoods of their engines, explaining why they had stopped; clearly something small with sharp teeth had caused damage inside.

He hoped those same somethings were not in their own.

The men were being overwhelmed. He counted fifteen, some with guns, trying to defend themselves against big mammals – coyotes, bears, and wolves.

One by one, the men were going down.

“We strike now,” Kazuko said, “take advantage of the chaos.”

“No, no, I do not like this idea!”

 _“You_ will be staying in the Jeep.”

“You will get no argument from me!”

The driver brought the vehicle to a skidding halt, kicking up clouds of dust. Kazuko and her team spilled out. The enemy combatants were too busy defending themselves from the animals to bother with the soldiers. 

A detachment of wolves pulled away from the main pack and circled behind the soldiers. The humans, already split into three smaller groups, had reached the sabotaged vehicles; one soldier started searching while the other covered their rear. 

A huge bear barrelled through the wolves, jaws gaping as it roared. It batted the nearest soldier aside before he could swing his gun around, though his body armour protected him from serious damage. The bear lunged again. The soldier rolled out of the way and found his feet.

“Come on, come on,” Abe yelled through his open door, flicking his eyes from the soldiers to the thieves. “Don’t try to shoot the bears. They have armoured hides!”

“Got it!” one man yelled, hauling a wooden crate from the back of one of the vehicles. Another soldier rushed to help him, and together they began to manhandle the crate back toward the Jeep. 

The wolves surged forward. The unencumbered soldiers squeezed off controlled bursts of fire, clearing a path for the others.

His attention turned to Kazuko. She was trapped between the sabotaged vehicles and the bear, snarling coyotes on either side. She swung her gun from one to the other. Her hesitation was obvious and understandable; the second she started shooting they’d be on her. 

She directed a spray of bullets at the coyotes, swinging the gun to cover them all, then burst through the space she’d created.

The bear swung around to block her again. She looked up at the animal, horror and determination making her face taut, and raised the gun again. The bear roared and knocked it out of her hands.

The soldiers were all occupied defending the crate-carriers. If the bear batted Kazuko as it had the taller, bulkier soldier, her body armour would still protect her from any flesh wounds… but it would also smash her ribs.

Someone had to act. And the only one left was Abe.

“Dear Lord, please get me through this,” he said as he heaved himself out of the Jeep, “and I promise I will be a better person!”

He scooped up a rock as he ran toward Kazuko. He cocked his arm and hurled the projectile; it hit the bear on the back of the head. It growled and whirled to face him, rising on its hind legs. 

Upright, the bear matched his six foot seven height, though it probably outweighed him by four or five hundred pounds. 

Before he could think about what he was doing – before the bear could react – Abe drew his fist back and punched it right on the jaw.

*****

The bear swayed. Abe snatched his fist back, cursing at the pain radiating through his fingers.

Then Kazuko grabbed him and dragged him back toward the Jeep. She hustled him inside just as the bear threw its weight against the vehicle; she dropped to the floor, avoiding the blow, and rolled under the chassis. She popped up like a jack-in-the-box on the other side and jumped in, slamming the door behind her. 

The driver floored it as soon as she was inside and they fled, leaving the enemy combatants and the animals to their fate. 

*****

“You are an _idiot!”_ Kazuko shouted a moment later. Then she said something in Japanese. Abe had no idea what it was, but he doubted it was complimentary. “I told you to stay in the Jeep, not try to wrestle a _bear!”_

“I did not try to wrestle a bear.” He felt a lot calmer now that they were heading back, even though his hand throbbed. He cradled it in his other hand, trying to decide if he’d broken anything. “I punched it.”

“You’re not a soldier! You’re a civilian!”

“I _was_ a soldier. A long time ago. I have seen war, Kazuko. I have seen anger, and killing, and death.”

Her anger faded as she searched his face. Whatever she saw there, she understood. 

“I believe you,” she said. “You’ll have to tell me about it sometime. But please, Abe – don’t do that again.”

“I don’t know,” he replied, an easy smile crossing his face, “I like rescuing beautiful women.”

“I’m going to hurt you,” she said as the soldiers burst into raucous laughter. “I swear to God, I’m going to hurt you.”

“Good!” Abe chuckled. “I like them feisty!”

*****

“We’ve stopped,” Chloe said, looking fixedly at the back of the truck.

“Should we just try and roll out the back before anyone comes?” Jamie asked.

“You have never been kidnapped before, have you?”

“Well excuse me, Miss French Secret Service.”

“We cannot run if our legs are bound,” Chloe said in a low, urgent voice. “Look for anything you can use to get free. Anything sharp.”

“Gotcha,” Jamie said.

A burst of angry Mandarin interrupted them. An older man in desert fatigues, his skin faded and lined, barked orders at four younger men. They all looked Asian. 

“We will be taking a little boat ride,” the older man said in heavily accented English. “I hope you do not get seasick.”

*****

“They’re still on the same heading, sir,” a soldier called into the back of the truck. “No deviation from course.”

“Arrogant bastards,” Mitch scowled. “They don’t think they’re being followed, or they just don’t think we can catch them. They’re not even trying to shake us.”

“They’ll hit the river soon, sir. The Rio Grande.”

“Makes sense,” Jackson said. “Air travel’s a big no right now. They need to leave the country, only way they can do that is via boat.”

“Ehh, boats again?”

“You don’t get too many whales on a river, Mitch.”

“You get dolphins in rivers.”

“The Rio Grande?”

“Maybe not. Still not sold on the idea, though.” Mitch shrugged. “But that’s where we’re going, so I guess I’d better suck it up and break out the water wings.”

*****

Jamie and Chloe were dragged – resisting all the way – to a battered old cargo vessel. They struggled so much that eventually their captors just carried them. Then, when Jamie decided the time had come to start biting, they gagged them too.

“My boss will pay handsomely for you,” the older man announced as he watched them being thrown into an empty storage room. “Ungag them. Maybe they will bite each other.” He laughed.

Their gags – scraps of cloth tied roughly behind their heads – were unceremoniously pulled away. 

“Look, why do you even need us?” Jamie said, struggling to sit. “We’re not scientists! We don’t know anything!”

“Be quiet!” Chloe hissed.

“The only scientist in your group is the, what are the words? The animal doctor. You are not here for any of your _professional_ skills.” He leered.

“Oh… oh _God,”_ she said as his meaning sank in. 

“Your faces have been on international television for months. My employer is interested in making a vaccine for the People’s Republic of China… he is also interested in _you.”_

“We, uh, we can’t possibly go to China,” Jamie rushed to say. “I mean we haven’t had our shots, we don’t have our passports… all that pollution will pay havoc with my asthma…”

“Nice try. See you in Beijing.”

*****

“I didn’t know you had asthma,” Chloe said when their captors were gone and the door was closed behind them. She’d started trying to wriggle across the floor toward a pile of scrap metal. 

“I don’t.” Jamie was trying to stand, a feat proving all the more difficult with her ankles bound. “Worth a shot though, right?”

“You have excellent improvisational skills.” Chloe’s smile was amused, despite their situation. 

“Oh, please, I suck. I was trying to wing my way past a soldier back at the Air Force Base, and he saw through me straight away.” She lost her balance and fell. “How the hell am I supposed to stand up without falling on my ass?” 

“Brace yourself against the wall. Like this.” Like a caterpillar crossing a leaf, Chloe eased herself up the wall. 

Jamie wriggled across the floor and, after much cursing and a few more falls, also managed to find her feet.

“What now?”

“Now? We find a sharp piece of scrap metal and try not to get tetanus.”

*****

When the river finally came into sight, their driver stopped the truck. 

“See that cargo vessel there? That’s where they are. You guys need to stay here,” the CO told Jackson and Mitch as the soldiers readied themselves.

“You’re joking, right?” Jackson said. 

“No sir! Orders are to keep you out of harm’s way.”

“We can handle ourselves.”

“If you leave us behind we’re just gonna follow you anyway,” Mitch said. “There are people we care about on that damned ship.”

“Orders are to –”

“My orders say shut the hell up and start walking,” Mitch interrupted. 

The CO looked at him for a moment, then nodded.

“Alright,” he said eventually, “but you stay in back, and you do exactly as you’re told. No heroes here tonight, sir.”

“Do I look like hero material?” 

Jackson thought about the way Mitch had been so driven about getting Jamie off that island, and thought that he looked _exactly_ like hero material. 

*****

They hiked the last half mile or so on foot. With no dust trail they’d be less visible to any guards, though the fading daylight helped. 

The CO called for silence as they drew closer, in case the wind carried their voices. He studied the vessel through binoculars, sharing them among his men.

“We go in fast and quiet,” he said. “There’s two guards at the base of the entry ramp, two at the top. Take one for questioning.”

“What do we do?” Jackson asked.

“Try not to fall over your own feet.”

*****

They watched the soldiers work, hanging back behind a rocky outcrop.

“My résumé is getting pretty full now,” Mitch whispered. “Veterinary pathologist by day, crack rescue force by night.”

“You forgot to add ‘prisoner’,” an accented voice said from behind them. Mitch felt something press into his back. Something cold, and hard, and round. 

Abe’s parting words flashed through his memory. _Do not do anything foolish. I know you have become a desperate man._

“Hey, let’s just talk about this,” he said, holding his hands up. Jackson already had his hands in the air. “I’m gonna turn around real slow –”

As he turned he seized the barrel of the rifle and shoved it skyward. Jackson followed his lead and punched their would-be attacker. He collapsed, unconscious.

“What the hell was that?” Jackson whisper-shouted. “You could have gotten yourself killed!”

“Well, check me out. Guess the Mitch Action Figure works OK after all.” 

“Come on, don’t make me crack a joke about plastic parts. I really don’t wanna go there.”

The sudden rattle of gunfire from the ship seized their attention. Bright flashes of light sizzled across the darkness.

Then silence fell.

“How, uh, how d’you think they’re doing in there?” Jackson asked.

“They’re soldiers of the United States of America,” Mitch drawled. “I bet they totally have the ship under their control.”

“Can we get the Mitch Action Figure to say that?”

“I hate you, Jackson.”

The unconscious man behind them groaned, coming round.

“I bet he knows where Chloe and Jamie are,” Jackson said. “I bet he knows where the leopard and my father’s notes are, too.”

“I could maybe hurt him a little. If you want.” He knew the man was listening.

“I thought you took an oath or something?”

“That’s doctors. Vet, remember? Never finished med school.”

*****

As it happened, they didn’t have to rough him up at all. They used his own shirt to bind him, then spent the next five minutes discussing how they could torture him. He cracked. Two minutes later they had everything they needed.

“Sorry, buddy,” Mitch said, punching the guy again. He slumped. “Can’t have you running to all your little friends until we’re long gone.” He clutched his fist, wincing. “How do you tough guys keep up this macho crap?”

“We hit _people_ at school rather than books. We, uh, we weren’t really gonna torture that guy, were we?”

“Well, _I_ was.”

“Kinda makes me glad you never made doctor.”

*****

 _“Mon dieu!”_ Chloe said through gritted teeth, “you would think this plastic was made of steel!”

She rubbed the plastic cable tie more forcefully against her chosen piece of scrap metal, picking up multiple cuts on her hands and wrists, and uttered a stream of infuriated French. With one last pull and scrape the plastic finally parted.

“I’m not even going to ask you to translate that,” Jamie said, still sawing at her own bonds. Her wrists were just as bloody.

“It means ‘I am so glad to have finally parted this obstinate plastic,” Chloe said, patting her wrists with her T-shirt. She winced. They were still bleeding.

“Really? I think I heard a couple words in there that meant –”

“You speak French?”

“No, but –”

“Then take my word for it. Here, let me help you.”

Jamie’s bonds parted with a snap, and with their hands free it was easier to work on their ankles.

“What do we do next?” Jamie asked.

“Oh, nothing much. Escape from a locked room, rescue the leopard – again! – recover the research and leave the ship undetected.”

“Piece of cake.”

*****

Using the dark for cover, Jackson and Mitch snuck across to the ship. The guards covering the entry ramp were out for the count.

“Aw, they didn’t lay out the welcome mat for us,” Mitch said.

“Will you shut up?” Jackson hissed as they crept up the ramp. “We need to find a way to get the damned leopard off the ship.”

“Well, they must have had a way to get him on. Like maybe they drove him on in a truck or something.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, slender pistol. “Or we could just tranq the hell out of him and haul his ass back to the truck.”

“Where did you get that?”

“A vet never reveals his secrets.”

Jackson hissed again and signalled for him to find cover. They ducked behind a stack of crates.

Two armed men ran past, shouting.

“Any idea what that was about?” Mitch whispered.

“Something along the lines of ‘our ship’s been invaded, kill it if it moves.’ My Mandarin is kinda non-existent.”

“How do we get all those boxes of papers out?”

“One thing at a time, Mitch. First we get the women, then we get the leopard. Anything else is a bonus.”

They inched their way along, hiding at the first sight or sound of danger. Their impromptu informant’s directions told them that Jamie and Chloe were below deck, so they scurried down and out of sight.

“You do realise we’ve only made it this far because the soldiers have cleared the path,” Mitch said. 

“I’ll take what I can get.”

They rounded a corner – and almost ran into their army escort.

“Sir!” the CO hissed. “Did I, or did I not, tell you to keep your asses in the truck?”

“My memory’s a little fuzzy on that,” Jackson replied, “but I know exactly where our objectives are. All of them.”

*****

Chloe was muttering darkly, her French low and vicious as she worked at the lock on the door. 

“I wish there had been more time for Abe to teach me this skill,” she growled, breaking yet another make-shift lock pick.

“I thought Secret Service operatives could just magic doors open?” Jamie commented, rummaging through the scrap heap.

“With the correct tools it might seem like magic, yes.” Chloe blew a strand of hair out of her face, frustrated. “With nothing but bent bits of metal this is going to take some time.”

*****

The soldiers escorted Jackson and Mitch through the bowls of the ship. They met resistance, but it was sporadic and easily dealt with. There weren’t nearly as many enemy combatants as they had been led to believe.

“We think the main force was recruited to hit the Air Force Base,” the CO explained as they hustled. “They achieved their objective and ran, sacrificing numbers for speed.”

“Of course,” Jackson said. “They wanted to get out of the country as soon as possible. But don’t they know that a transatlantic voyage is impossible right now, unless they happen to be in a warship?”

“No idea, sir, and frankly I don’t care. Makes our life a whole lot easier. Down!”

He and another soldier shoved the non-combatants roughly to the ground, then laid out a covering burst of fire as several men came into view. They twitched and danced as the bullets ripped into them, then fell. 

“Who needs animals to do all the killing?” Mitch said, his cheek pressed to the metal floor. “They could just sit back and let us do it all for ‘em.”

“We’ve been doing a pretty good job of that since…well, forever,” Jackson shrugged. “Maybe if we were more in tune with _them,_ we’d fight each other less.” Then his eyes opened wide. “That’s it! _That’s_ what my father was trying to achieve when he made Evan Lee Hartley evolve!”

“Great, now tell me all about it when we’re not under fire!”

*****

Chloe uttered a shriek of rage as yet another lock pick broke. Her temper shattered and she started pounding her fists on the door and kicking it. Jamie caught her arm and dragged her back. 

*****

“Hear that?” Jackson said after the gunfire had ceased.

Mitch cocked his head. “Sounds like… knocking?”

A string of infuriated French reached their ears. Jackson winced.

“That is not anatomically possible,” he muttered. “Gentlemen, I think we’ve found our ladies.”

*****

“Ma’am, this is the US Army!” the CO shouted from out in the corridor. “Stand clear of the door!”

Chloe and Jamie shared a brief look – joy, incredulity – and ran back from the door. 

“Three, two, one!”

An explosion rocked the room, filling it with roiling smoke. They coughed and covered their mouths. When it cleared the door was gone, blown off its hinges and mangled on the floor.

Mitch and Jackson shot through the opening before the soldiers could move, searching the dingy, smoke-filled space. 

“This is becoming a habit,” Jamie cried, throwing herself into Mitch’s arms. He hugged her so hard she thought her ribs would crack, but she didn’t care. He was here – he’d come for her again – and in that moment, that was all that mattered.

“I didn’t use all that energy getting you back the first time just to lose you again,” he rasped, unsteady. 

Jackson and Chloe weren’t talking. They were kissing. 

“Move it or lose it, ladies!” the CO shouted. “Make up on your own time!”

*****

They reached Walker Air Force Base hours later, just as the first hints of colour were beginning to lighten the sky.

The rest of the search and rescue mission had gone without a hitch. They’d searched the ship and neutralised the scant resistance that was left. Irniq, the leopard, was still tranquillised in a cage. The soldiers hauled ass and loaded the doped up animal into the back of their truck. 

When they returned to the base they found it a hive of activity. Security had been tripled, and soldiers were hard at work rebuilding the bombed out structures. They met Amelia Sage at the gate.

“You have it all?” she asked, anxious. Her eyes flicked over each face in turn.

“All present and correct,” Jackson said, tipping her an ironic salute.

“Excellent!” she exclaimed, a wide smile taking ten years off her face. “Well done! Very well done!”

“Is Abe back yet? Kazuko?”

“They came back a few hours ago… complete with the shipment of mother cell.”

“Alright!” He punched the air. “Are we good, or are we _good?”_

“We did crazy things and we’re not dead yet.” Mitch shrugged. “You could always substitute _good_ with _nuts.”_

Jamie grabbed his chin and turned his head, surprising him with a quick, hard kiss.

“If by nuts you mean ‘my personal hero’, you’d be in the right area.”

“What about me?” Jackson said, grinning at Chloe. She stared at him with a half-amused, half-insolent look in her eyes that made him think – very hard – about finding a bed on which to throw her down.

“I would have got that door open sooner or later,” she said, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. “Then I would have found a way to recover the leopard, find the research notes and save the day.”

Jamie let out a bright peal of laughter, peeling herself away from Mitch long enough to give Chloe a surprise hug.

“Maybe I should just hang out with _you_ more often,” she giggled.

*****

The CO and his team made off with the leopard and the research notes. Amelia led Jackson, Mitch, Chloe and Jamie through the base to their former Research Room. It was already being redecorated, half-covered in a fresh coat of paint, while two soldiers were in the finishing stages of fitting a new door.

Abe was talking to Kazuko. She was laughing over something he’d said, her eyes bright and cheeks flushed.

“Rafiki!” Abe said when he saw Jackson. He grabbed his friend and hugged him enthusiastically. Then Jamie piled in, and soon they were all in a group hug. 

Kazuko stood awkwardly to one side, her smile gone – until Jamie grabbed her and drew her in.

“You guys are the best friends anyone could ever have!” she enthused, wiping her eyes. “And I’m including you in this, Kazuko. You kept Abe alive.”

“Actually, it was the other way around,” she laughed. “Ask him about the time he punched a bear in the mouth.”


	7. Mending Bridges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Safe and sound, the team are finally able to work on releasing the vaccine. The animals go back to their usual behaviour, and humanity works on rebuilding what was destroyed.  
> Chloe invites Jackson to spend Christmas with her and her sister Natalie – and Natalie’s boyfriend Jean-Michel – as the two sisters try to repair their relationship. Kazuko invites Abe to stay with her and her parents in rural Japan, while Mitch invites Jamie to visit Clem.  
> While Jackson plans to ask Chloe to marry him, and Kazuko has become close to Abe, Jamie and Mitch find themselves drifting apart without any real clue as to why – or how to save their relationship. It takes a conversation with Clem for Mitch to crystallise his feelings, but it may be too late; Jamie has an unexpected encounter with her ex-boyfriend Ethan.  
> In the midst of this domestic drama – unseen, unexpected – the animals launch another attack.

“It is with the very greatest of pleasure – and the very greatest of relief – that I can now confirm that every animal across the globe is free from infection. The Beast Rebellion is officially over.”

The room filled with cheers, whoops and wild clapping, so loud that no one could hear the rest of the President’s televised speech. It didn’t matter. They’d heard the most important part.

Jackson’s apartment in D.C. was crowded; Chloe, Jamie, Mitch, Abe and Kazuko. He glanced in Abe’s direction, only to see he’d swept the diminutive Japanese-American woman off her feet and into his arms – she dangled several feet above the floor. It would have been comical if he didn’t care so much about Abe’s happiness. He’d seen the two grow steadily closer over the last couple of months. He was pleased for him.

“When do you think they will tell us they are dating?” Chloe said, handing him a beer. Jackson took a swig from the bottle and pulled her into a one-armed hug.

_“We_ never did. People kinda just absorb the knowledge, like osmosis.” 

“That is your scientific opinion?”

“Oh, no. I leave the science to Mitch.” He tipped his bottle to the veterinary pathologist who, sitting in the corner of the living room, was locked in conversation with Jamie.

“Jackson, I – I want to go to Paris,” Chloe announced suddenly, awkward. “Now air travel is possible again, I want to spend Christmas with my sister.”

“Of course. Have you spoken to her?”

_“Oui._ Finally she is speaking to me. Although mostly we have passed messages through Jean-Michel.”

“Oh.” There was a wealth of meaning behind that word. “You’re still talking to him?”

Chloe laughed and kissed Jackson on the cheek. 

“You have nothing to worry about,” she said. “I am glad that my ex-fiancée is now having a relationship with my sister. Because otherwise, I would have been a married woman when I met you.”

Jackson put his beer down so that he could hold her against him. 

“Want me to come with you?”

“Oh, would you?” She seemed relieved, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulder.

“Chloe, I think I would do anything for you.” 

When she wasn’t looking, he patted his pants pocket – for the tenth time that day – to make sure that the box was still there. The box that held the ring. 

_Just gotta find the right time,_ he thought.

*****

“I can’t believe it’s finally over,” Jamie said, sipping her beer. “We’ve been on this damned thing for months, and now it’s _finally_ over. Jackson’s got his own pad,” she waved her bottle at the room in general, “but the rest of us have been shacked up in Fort McNair.” 

She leaned forward and clinked her bottle against Mitch’s. Fort McNair was a specially reinforced, heavily protected base in D.C. And while it was that true Jackson had this apartment, he’d spent more time at the base – with Chloe and the rest of them – than he had here.

“I guess we just go back to our ordinary lives,” he shrugged.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Jamie shook her head. “There’s no chance of that. None of us are ordinary people now. We’ve seen too much, done too much. Besides,” she jabbed a finger in his direction, “you need to go see your family for Christmas! I bet your daughter’s dying to see you.”

As expected, mention of Clementine brought a big, goofy grin to his face.

“See, that’s the thing,” he said, rolling his beer bottle between his hands. “She’s not dying anymore. That was the one good thing to come out of Reiden Global, the cure for my daughter. She wants to spend some time with you, by the way.”

“Me? Oh, I don’t think so –”

“She wants to get to know my new girlfriend properly.”

Jamie blushed. She couldn’t help it. While neither could deny the attraction between them, things had become… awkward. They were sleeping together – which Jamie supposed meant they were ‘dating’ – but they’d carefully avoided using labels. And neither had used the ‘l’ word since coming back to the mainland US. It had been easy to say it, when they’d both come so close to dying, but now the danger was gone it had become increasingly difficult. Living together – even in Fort McNair – was surprisingly hard.

_Maybe it’ll be easier once I find a new place to live,_ she thought. 

“Maybe we can sort something out next year,” she said eventually, aware that she’d left too long a gap before answering.

Mitch abruptly stood and drained the last of his beer. 

“Yeah. Sure.”

*****

“Do you have any plans for Christmas?”

“I usually fly back to Japan, spend time with my parents,” Kazuko told Abe. “I was born here, but my parents moved to my mother’s home town when I graduated college. They live in a beautiful place nestled against the mountains.”

“I can tell by the look in your eyes that you miss them.”

“I miss the town, too. Everything there is just… life is just slower there. More peaceful.” 

“Well, let us hope that _our_ lives will return to their usual pace now the Beast Rebellion is over.”

“What will _you_ do for Christmas?”

“I have not decided yet. The last few years I have spent the holiday with Jackson and his mother.”

“No family of your own?”

Abe’s face tightened. “No. I have no family.”

“Something happened, didn’t it? Don’t worry – I’m not going to push.” She hesitated a moment. “Would you like to spend the holiday with me?”

“Go to Japan? Visit your parents?” He seemed genuinely surprised by the offer. Kazuko smiled.

“See the town, enjoy the peace and quiet…”

Abe beamed. “Thank you. I would enjoy that very much.”

*****

A few days later Chloe and Jackson boarded a transatlantic flight from D.C. to Paris. Settling into her seat, Chloe pulled her Kindle out of her carry-on luggage, but something about Jackson’s posture made her put it back. His whole frame was tense, his hands clenching the seat rests before they’d even taken off. Sweat glistened on his face.

“We are safe,” she murmured, covering one of his hands with both of hers. “What happened the last time you were on a plane will not happen again.”

“I know that.” The smile he gave her was weak. “My head knows it. My heart, uh, my heart’s having a little trouble keeping up.”

“It will take time.” She gave his hands a squeeze. “But you got back on a plane. There are many people who would not.”

“Like riding a bicycle. Just get right back on it. Nothing to it.” He didn’t look as if he believed it, though.

Chloe leaned in close and kissed his cheek. Her smile was impish.

“Feeling better already,” he said.

*****

Jamie came to see Mitch off. 

“I’ll only be gone a week or so,” he told her now, hefting his suitcase into the trunk of his rental car and closing the lid.

Jamie stood a few feet away, one arm wrapped around herself, nibbling restlessly on the nails of her other hand. Impulsively she grabbed him for a hug.

“Be careful,” she said. “I know the Beast Rebellion is over, but just… be careful, OK?”

Mitch, taken aback by her ferocity, let his arms close gently around her. 

“I’m only going to Maine,” he said, stroking her hair. “Not the other side of the world.” He shrugged. “Though I can see how people would get confused.”

Jamie laughed, but it was a watery sound. She was crying.

“Hey,” he said, tilting her chin up. He smoothed his thumbs over her cheeks, wiping the trickle of tears away. “You could still come with me.”

“I… I don’t think I should.” She cleared her throat. “It’s going to be awkward enough you being in the same room as your ex-wife’s new husband. They need to get used to you being a part of your daughter’s life again before you introduce anyone else.”

“I’m gonna miss you, Jamie.” He bent his head and kissed her. She deepened the kiss, twining her arms around his neck.

“I’ll call you,” she said eventually.

“You better. Every day.”

*****

“I managed to call in a few favours,” Kazuko said as she drove Abe to another military base out of town. “Got us an Army transport plane.”

“And this is better than a commercial flight how exactly?” Abe asked, eyeing her askance.

“Guns.”

“But the Beast Rebellion is over. There are no bears here to punch,” he replied, his smile teasing.

“Never hurts to be prepared.”

*****

Natalie and Jean-Michel lived in a smart town-house. Chloe and Jackson checked into a hotel and caught up on a few hours’ sleep, then grabbed a taxi and headed deeper into the city.

“I feel like a fish out of water,” Jackson said as they travelled. “I thought my French was pretty good. Enough to get by, anyway. Now, not so much.”

Chloe laughed. “You are doing fine! French is not an easy language to learn, but it is a beautiful one, _n’est pas?”_

“You speak five languages. What’s your secret?”

“I guess I am just more intelligent than you,” she smirked. 

“Come here and say that,” Jackson laughed, pulling her into a tight, hard hug in the back of the taxi. He kissed her thoroughly, one hand cupping her cheek.

The driver, glancing at them in the rear view mirror, shook his head and muttered something.

“I could probably understand ‘get a room’ in pretty much any language,” Jackson grinned.

The taxi pulled up by the side of the road. Jackson pulled out his wallet and fumbled with the unfamiliar euros. He felt the familiar shape of the box beside his wallet. 

Chloe laughed and handed over the fare before he’d even managed to identify the notes. She laughed again and got out of the car.

*****

They took the lift up to Natalie and Jean-Michel’s apartment. It was empty apart from themselves.

“Paris is a beautiful city,” Jackson remarked, snaking his arm around her waist. “Maybe I could live here one day.” 

Chloe eyed him warily. This was the closest they had come to discussing a deeper relationship.

“It is a long way from your home,” she said carefully. “A long way from your friends and your mother.”

He leaned closer, kissed her cheek. “See, there’s a little thing called _airplanes_ that make transatlantic flight real easy.”

“You would really make that move?”

He took her fully in his arms, turned to face her. “Home is where the heart is,” he said, touching his fingers to her chest. He drew her into a deep, searching kiss.

The lift doors slid open. An elderly couple stood there, watching the lovers with startled, disapproving eyes. Jackson and Chloe, giggling like teenagers and still holding on to one another, exited the lift.

*****

No one was aware that, on the roof of Natalie’s apartment block, birds were massing.

*****

Abe stepped off the giant military plane, bag over his shoulder and Kazuko already ahead of him. A soft lavender sunset spread across the sky, deepening to plum. He took a deep, restorative breath – the smooth journey hadn’t allayed his fears one bit – and followed Kazuko. 

“What did I tell you?” she said when he reached the bottom of the steps. “Piece of cake.”

“We still have the return flight to get through.”

“Oh, ye of little faith. Relax. You’re on holiday now.”

“More than that.” He pulled her close and kissed her, though he had to bend down to do so. “I am on holiday with a beautiful woman. What more could a man want?”

*****

Kazuko commandeered an army Jeep. They drove through the thick night; they were miles away from any city, and Abe finally found the peace – the night sounds – comforting in a way they had not been for a long time. That, more than anything, reassured him that the world was finally back to normal. They were safe. They could live again.

Kazuko’s parents owned their own land, and their home – a traditional Japanese house – was built on the side of a valley. Both Michael and Hinata Wilson greeted them at the door, bowing low as a sign of their respect. Kazuko’s answering bow was lower. Abe did his best to match her.

Kazuko was a mirror of her mother, though she had her father’s height. Michael Wilson was solidly built, trim, with greying blonde hair. He looked Abe up and down, then grabbed his hand and shook it hard.

“Good to finally meet you, son,” Michael said. Abe was no expert in American accents, but he thought the man had a Northern twang. “Kazuko’s told us all about you. Come in, come in.”

“I hope she has not told you everything,” Abe replied with an easy smile. “I would hate to spoil the surprise.”

*****

No one saw the pride of Japanese macaques gathering in the trees above the Wilson family home.

*****

Jamie, the only person to remain behind in D.C., felt… empty. Lost. The world was fine, people weren’t dying and there was no big, international conspiracy. Life had gone back to normal.

So why didn’t _she_ feel normal?

Part of that, she knew, was living here at Fort McNair. She’d lost her apartment months ago, back when the Beast Rebellion really took off. She, Mitch, Abe and Chloe had been living here ever since their return to the mainland. Just waiting until the crisis was over.

Now it _was_ truly over, it was time to move on. Everyone else had homes to – well, go home to – but Jamie had nothing.

She hauled ass out of bed and padded into the bathroom, finally feeling she had a new purpose. She grabbed the toothpaste and brush and started cleaning her teeth.

“I need to find a new place to live,” she said to her reflection in the mirror, “but before that, I need a new job. I guess now Mitch will move back to LA…” 

The realisation made her hand pause. White froth foamed on her lips. Now that they _could_ move on with their lives, there was nothing to stop Mitch moving on with his. And that would probably mean… without her. How did she feel about that?

She remembered the sea voyage back to the mainland with exquisite detail, particularly the part where Mitch said ‘I love you’ and she’d said it back. She’d meant it then, she knew she had… but was it really love? She’d thought about him every single day for three months after Aippaq had rescued her. Some people would call that obsession, not love.

*****

In the mess hall she shared with the boys and girls of Fort McNair, she sipped coffee and flipped straight to the jobs section of the local newspaper. Her reputation meant that she could probably land any journalistic job she wanted, but right now she felt that she needed to stay small – to get back to her roots. She’d already helped land the biggest story of her career; it wasn’t likely to get much bigger after that. 

She picked up a biro and started circling jobs. Then she reached for her phone.

*****

Mitch was dog-tired when he finally made it to Maine. Audra and Clem had gone to stay with his replacement Justin, and his parents. He wasn’t expecting a warm welcome from anyone except Clem, but even that was more of a hope than an expectation.

So he was surprised when Audra opened the door and threw her arms around him. He kissed her cheek – perfunctorily – and held her away from him. 

“Wow, guess you must have missed me,” he drawled.

“You saved our daughter’s life and then you saved the world,” she smiled. “Get in here, you big lunk.”

*****

Mitch took a breather from the family party a few hours later, ducking out of the living room to sit on the hall stairs. He took a healthy gulp from the bottle of beer he’d brought out with him. He eyed it thoughtfully, wondering if he shouldn’t stay away from the booze until he went back to D.C; keeping his sarcastic tongue in check had never been a skill of his, and he really didn’t want to offend Justin or his folks. 

Wild laughter spilled through the open living room door. They were playing some stupid family game or another, and had been desperate to include him. Seems saving the world made people overlook the fact that you were a jerk.

Not Jamie, though. She was smart as a cookie, that one. His feelings for her were… not exactly changing, but fluctuating, and he was sure that she was going through the same transformation. 

He’d been so _sure_ that he was in love with her. She was everything he wasn’t – brave, compassionate – and he _should_ be in love with her. He still felt an echo of that feeling.

Their problems stemmed from that damned plane crash, and that kiss. She’d taken him by surprise, knocked him off-kilter, then left him more unsure of himself than he’d ever been. Not her fault – of course it wasn’t her fault – but if that plane had never crashed, they would have been able to explore their attraction, their feelings for each other, in a more natural way. He wouldn’t have spent three months mourning her death, building his attraction into some fantasy ideal of love. 

But… he’d gone through hell to get her off that island. Then he’d come after her on the cargo ship. Didn’t _that_ mean that he was in love with her?

“God, what a mess,” he groaned, running his hand down his face. All he wanted to do was finish this beer and sleep for a week.

A slight figure sneaking away from the party drew his attention – Clem, his darling Clementine, the centre of his universe. Today she was wearing baby-girl pink; he wondered how much longer she’d pick that colour. When she hit her teenaged years, would she favour Goth or grunge? Would she go for the hipster look? How would his little girl change?

_Doesn’t matter,_ he thought, taking another swig of beer. _Fact of the matter is, she_ will _change, because those teenaged years are now a certainty._ He swallowed his mouthful and smiled at her. 

“Hey, kiddo. Not digging the Monopoly?”

“Monopoly’s stupid,” she said, coming to sit beside him on the stairs. “Gramma built hotels on all of her squares, and now I’m bankrupt.”

“Ouch,” Mitch laughed. “Welcome to the real world. How, how’s Henry doing?”

Henry was the dog he’d bought for her years ago, trained to warn her when a seizure was coming. He was no longer needed in that capacity, but he was still a much-loved part of the family.

“He’s doing great.” Clem beamed. “I could never work out why… you know.”

“Why he didn’t get all bitey?” Clem nodded. “Well…” He took another swallow of beer, thinking about his answer. “The truth is, we just don’t know. Certain animals didn’t change. There’s all kinds of theories…”

“What do _you_ think?”

“Me? It’s all in here.” He tapped his chest, above his heart. “The human connection. Henry, other animals like him, they’ve been trained pretty much since birth to look after their people. Maybe that has an effect. But who knows?” He shrugged.

“I like that theory,” she smiled. But then it faded, and her expression became serious. “Mitch…” She looked away from him, fiddling with the lace on her sneaker.

“Yeah?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Clem, you can ask me anything.”

“Why didn’t you bring Jamie? I really wanted to get to know her properly.”

Ah, crap. How was he supposed to field _this_ question?

_With the truth, I guess. She’s wise enough to understand._

“I invited her,” he said eventually. “She… well, she decided it might be better if she didn’t come, at least not this year.” He didn’t want to think about next Christmas – that was a big, hazy ‘what-if’. 

“Why not?”

“She thought it might be awkward… you know, between your Mom, Justin and her.”

“But I think Mom would really like her.”

“Honey, what people see on TV and what you get in real life… well, that doesn’t always match up.” 

“But _you_ know what Jamie’s really like.”

“Well, I thought I did…” He took another mouthful of beer. The bottle was nearly empty. He swilled it around the bottom. 

“You’re not breaking up with her?”

The alarm in her voice might have been comical, under other circumstances. Not now. He didn’t want Clem to be alarmed over anything, especially not his relationship.

“I don’t – I don’t know,” he rushed to say, holding out a placating hand. “Everything’s up in the air right now.”

“Do you love her?”

Wow, that was a blunt question to hear from a little kid. 

“It’s not as simple as that…”

“Do you _love_ her?”

He’d been out of his daughter’s life for a long time. It pained him that his happiness meant this much to her.

“Clem, I…” He struggled to articulate how he felt. “I think… I think I don’t know _how_ to love her when the world’s not ending.”

“Is that _it?”_ She seemed so scornful. He couldn’t understand why.

“Well, that’s a fairly big ‘it’…”

“Mitch, the world’s been ending since the day it began. It’s just gonna take a really, really long time to get there. Now go call your girlfriend and tell her you love her!”

He grinned, tipped his beer bottle toward her in a salute. “Out of the mouths of babes,” he said. “As you command, princess.”

*****

Outside, in the thick Maine snow, a lone wolf watched the house. It was joined by another. And another. And another. And another…

*****

Luck – or more likely her reputation – was with Jamie. She bagged an interview the very first call she made. It wasn’t the job she’d applied for, but the editor she’d spoken with had given her the number of an editor for the Washington Post. 

The interview went well. Really well. So well in fact that she’d barely had to open her mouth to have a job offer waved at her; she felt uncomfortable, then guilty, at trading on her reputation as ‘The Woman Who Survived’ and ‘The Woman Who Helped Save the World’. But that was how things worked. When life gave you apple pie, you damned well sat down and ate it.

She was manoeuvring the busy city streets – what a difference a couple of months made! – when her phone rang. It was Mitch. 

“Hey,” he said. She could hear the smile in his voice. 

“Hey yourself.” She wasn’t smiling. For some reason she felt guilty again. She had no idea why. She’d done nothing to feel guilty about. “How’s it going up in Maine? They treating you OK?”

“Well, after the bank seized half my estates and Justin’s Mom ripped me for rent, I kinda think Monopoly isn’t my game.”

“Ouch,” she laughed. “Feel the burn. How’s Clem?”

Approaching a coffee shop, she saw a familiar face coming from the opposite direction. _Oh my God, that’s Ethan!_

“Clem’s good. She’s fine. Bummed you didn’t come, though.”

“Look, Mitch, I – uh – I gotta go,” she said abruptly. “Call me tomorrow, OK?”

“Well, that was a short one,” he replied. “I lo –”

She cut him off, shoved the phone back in her purse, and hurried after Ethan.

*****

Shrill squeaks echoed from the storm drains on either side of the road outside the coffee shop. A rat poked its nose out onto the tarmac. Spurred on by the ranks of those behind, it scurried out onto the sidewalk. 

*****

Jackson, Chloe, Natalie and Jean-Michel were sitting on opposite sides of the politest war-zone Jackson had ever seen.

Natalie’s apartment was large and neat, just as Chloe’s had been. He noticed that the sisters had similar tastes – both had fine, delicate furniture. There the similarities ended… though the way they were both blatantly uncomfortable in the other’s presence was a similarity they could all do without.

“So, uh, Jean-Michel…” Jackson said into the awkward silence. The women hadn’t exchanged more than half a dozen words since they’d arrived. They even avoided looking at each other. “You into sports?”

“I enjoying watching football,” he said, jumping on the conversational lifeline. He kept shooting anxious glances between his ex-girlfriend and his current one. “The World Cup… the European Cup…”

“Soccer, huh?” Jackson sat up, reached for his coffee. He sipped it and winced; too strong. “What’s the French team like these days?” 

“Eh…” Jean-Michel gave a masculine shrug that Jackson interpreted with ease. It said that, while the team wasn’t as good as it could be, it was the national team of his country and he was duty-bound to defend it. 

Something banged against the window, making them all jump. Natalie in particular shrunk in on herself; Jean-Michel curled his arm around her shoulders.

“What was that?” Chloe exclaimed.

Jackson jumped up and crossed to the window. There was a scratch on the glass, but nothing else.

“Bird strike,” he said, uneasy. “I don’t see any more, though.”

“We are fine,” Chloe murmured, more to herself than to the room at large. “The Beast Rebellion is over. It was just a stray bird, that is all.”

“Always so sure that you have the answers, yes?” Natalie rasped. “Always so sure that you have the moral high ground?”

Jackson and Jean-Michel shared a look. It was going to be a long holiday.

*****

Abe, Kazuko and her parents were sharing tea around a traditional table. Though Michael Wilson looked comfortable beside his wife and daughter, Abe looked comically out of place beside the petite women. 

“I am enjoying this tea very much,” he told Hinata. “Thank you.”

“You are most welcome.” Hinata smiled and bowed from her seated position. “I hope you are enjoying your stay?”

“Your home is beautiful,” Abe sighed. “I could see myself living in a place like this one day, surrounded by trees and the wilderness. The trees and the grass might be a different colour, but they are not so different from my homeland.” 

Kazuko met her mother’s eyes and smiled.

Outside, a macaque shrieked. 

*****

Mitch was halfway down his… actually he’d lost track of how many beers he’d had right after Jamie had hung up on him. He just stayed out on the stairs. He was no stranger to drowning his sorrow. 

“So this is where you’re hiding,” Audra said as she entered the hall. She glared at him with her arms crossed. “Clem told me you’d worked your way through the Bud.” 

“Is that what this is?” He held the bottle up and squinted at it. Oh yeah. There was a label. 

“What’s gotten into you? Is this how you want your daughter to know you? As a drunken old fool?”

“I,” he said, waving the bottle at her, “am not old. I am, however, a fool. And not nearly drunk enough.”

Audra dropped down on the stairs beside him, forcing him to scoot to make room for her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Me, apparently.”

“Ahh… is this something to do with Jamie?”

How bizarre. He was discussing his girlfriend with his ex-wife. Did it feel as weird to her as it did to him?

“Everything I’ve done over the last couple months has been to do with Jamie. And what does it mean? That I’m a goddam idiot, that’s what.” He took a hearty swig of beer, only to find the bottle empty. Well, shoot. 

“Tell me what happened.”

“You really wanna know?”

“If it’s going to affect our daughter, then yeah, I want to know.”

“I called her. She hung up on me.”

Audra covered a smile with her hand. “That’s it?”

“Right in the middle of me telling her I loved her.”

Audra winced. _“Do_ you love her?”

“Oh God, yes. Clem helped me put everything in perspective. Kids are funny like that, right?”

“Sure. They have a way of cutting through all the BS to get right to the heart of things. Does Jamie love you?”

“I thought she did. Now, I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’.”

“Call her in the morning,” Audra advised. “There’s any number of reasons why she could have hung up. Who knows, maybe she just lost signal or something?”

“You, madam, are the voice of reason,” he slurred.

“And you’re drunk. Go to bed, Mitch.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Outside, a wolf raised its voice in a howl. Others joined in until it sounded as if the whole pack was singing.

Mitch looked at Audra. He didn’t feel the least bit drunk anymore.

*****

“I never thought I’d run into you here!”

Jamie and Ethan had bought coffee and now sat at a table near the back of the shop, where they could talk in peace.

“I work a couple blocks over,” Ethan explained. Damn, he was just as good looking as he’d been during their relationship. Jamie was struggling to remember why they’d broken up. “There’s an independent newspaper there. Small now, but looking up.”

A small, independent news agency. Just what she’d been looking for! And for Ethan to be the one to bring it to her… maybe it was fate or something. Not that she believed in fate. 

“What made you leave your old job?”

“Lots of reasons.” He shrugged, giving her that warm, attractive smile that she remembered so well. “I just wanted a change of pace, I guess. Plus, you weren’t there anymore.”

“Shucks. I’m blushing.” She looked down at her coffee. 

“Odd that we should run into each other like this, right?”

“Right.” She laughed, but it felt awkward and stilted. “I, uh, I’m kinda seeing someone…”

“So where is he now? It’s nearly Christmas, Jamie.”

“Up in Maine. Visiting his daughter and ex-wife.”

“Daughter… wow, that’s a lot of baggage.”

Yeah. It was. 

“Let’s not talk about him, OK?” she begged, reaching out to touch his hand. 

Over at the counter, a waitress screamed. Jamie whipped around so fast she thought she’d given herself whiplash.

A fat, glossy rat sat on the counter. 

*****

“Would you like some more coffee, Jackson?” Natalie asked. 

“Ah, we have beer if you would like that instead?” Jean-Michel rushed to offer. Jackson squashed a smile. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who thought Natalie’s coffee was too strong.

“Beer would be great,” he said. 

Something slammed into the window again. It was followed by another thud, and another. Natalie shied closer to Jean-Michel, while Chloe stared at the window with wide-eyed horror.

The glass cracked. Then it shattered. The birds poured in.

*****

The shriek of the macaques was getting louder by the minute. Kazuko and her family exchanged uneasy glances. 

“I would like to say that there is nothing to worry about,” Abe commented, “as the Beast Rebellion is over, but I find I am worried.”

A crash snapped their attention to the front of the house, where dark silhouettes could be seen marauding through the paper screen of the dividing door. 

An enraged macaque exploded through the door and leapt at Kazuko.

*****

In the living room, Clem’s dog Henry – hearing the wolves howl – stood with his legs spread and hackles raised, lips curled back in a full-on snarl. He started barking a challenge to the wolves outside.

“Where’s Clem?” Mitch demanded, already on his feet. The empty beer bottle was forgotten.   
“Still playing Monopoly.” Audra’s eyes were round with fear. “Is it – is it the Beast Rebellion?”

Clem ran into the hall and went to stand by her mother. Audra put protective arms around her daughter. Justin followed a second later.

“Could just be a bunch of wolves singing at the moon.” Mitch winced. Even he didn’t believe that.

“They can’t get in, right? Mitch? Tell me they can’t get in?”

Her answer was a crash of glass from the kitchen. 

*****

“This is D.C!” Ethan yelled, irritably. “We don’t get goddamned rats in coffee shops!”

“Maybe we should go,” Jamie said, darting uneasy looks around the room. “I didn’t think you could get a nest of super-evolved rats in a hotel basement, either, and I was wrong about that.”

Ethan picked up a sugar shaker and hurled it at the rat. His blow would have connected, if the rat hadn’t darted out of the way.

“Uh, I think maybe you shouldn’t have done that…”

“Why not? The Beast Rebellion’s over, right?”

Two rats popped up where one had been a moment before. 

“Right, right…”

A horde of rats dropped from the ceiling and onto the counter.


	8. Burning Bridges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie and Ethan are attacked by rats; Jamie’s feelings for Mitch are resolved. Kazuko and Abe escape from macaques while Jackson, Chloe, Nat and Jean-Michel are attacked by pigeons. Mitch must protect his family from a pack of wolves long enough for them to escape. The team brings their families to Fort McNair, another military base. The Beast Rebellion has officially begun again: - the vaccine was a failure.  
> Jamie and Mitch row over Ethan, while Chloe – stinging from her sister’s rejection – makes a terrible mistake with Jean-Michel. Nat and Jean-Michel leave the base with awful consequences. Hurting and alone, Chloe takes matter into her own hands… and the animals attack, yet again.

Jamie huddled beneath an overturned table, listening as the shrieks and screams of the other customers faded or died. 

“He left me,” she muttered to herself, furious and terrified at the same time. She was covered with scratches, but she didn’t think any of the rats had bitten her. “That bastard _left_ me!”

He’d taken one look at the ceaseless flow of rats, screamed like a little girl, and fled. 

Mitch wouldn’t have run. He’d have stayed right here with her, would have pushed the table over her for shelter, and tried to come up with a plan to get them the hell out. 

All her confusion about Mitch fell away. She loved him. The guy who’d rescued her not once but twice, and would do so in a heartbeat if he knew that she was in trouble. _Why_ had she agreed to have coffee with a guy like Ethan? 

She knew why. She’d had good times with him, or thought she had, and wanted to try to catch those days again. But they were gone, just like the ordinary life she’d lived before. She wasn’t ordinary anymore. In her head, she’d wanted to compare him to Mitch. Now she felt ashamed.

She remembered now why she’d broken up with Ethan – his refusal to accept her quest against Reiden Global. Mitch had been the same, at least in the beginning, but he’d stayed on that journey with her. He hadn’t abandoned it, and he hadn’t abandoned her. 

Wild scrabbling against the wood. Mitch wasn’t here to save her now, so she’d just have to do it herself.

*****

A wild flap of wings filled the Parisian living room. The four humans covered their heads, desperately trying to avoid the savage beaks and claws. Chloe had grabbed her purse, and was using it to shield her face.

Jackson grabbed Chloe and dragged her through the maelstrom. 

“My sister!” she yelled. “I have to get my sister out!”

Claws scored her face, making her cry out. Jackson tried to pull her close against him, but she flailed blindly through the press of feathered bodied until she found a hand. It was Jean-Michel, and he had Natalie folded against his side. Together they formed a chain that beat against the attackers, until finally they made it out of the apartment and into the hallway. Jean-Michel slammed the door behind them.

Screams and yells echoed from other apartments. The whole building was under attack.

“What – what do we do now?” Natalie asked, halting. 

Chloe, breathing hard and fast, dabbed blood off her face. 

“Follow me!” she commanded, slinging her purse over her neck and shoulder.

Jackson glanced at her, surprised. In that moment she was the epitome of what he imagined a French Secret Service agent should be – decisive and in control. He loved her just a little bit more. Reflexively he tapped his pocket. The box was still there.

Chloe dashed down the hall, pulling Jackson behind her. Her sister and ex-fiancé ran after them, and all the while the thud of birds’ feathered bodies hitting the door echoed behind them. 

*****

Despite his great size Abe found his feet before Kazuko or her parents. He knocked the first macaque aside with his clenched fists, and was just able to grab the second as it leapt to attack him. Yelling, he threw it at the macaque that had jumped at Kazuko’s parents.

Kazuko seized a nearby lamp and, knocking off the shade and pulling out the chord, she turned it into a makeshift club. One – two – three charging macaques fell to her sure blows. Abe was impressed by her grit and determination and, most of all, by the calm way she kept her head. Her terrified parents huddled behind her, Michael careful to keep his wife behind _him._ She was crying, great, silent tears that trickled down her barely-lined cheeks.

“We need to get back to the plane!” she yelled as another monkey came at her. She swung her club; the animal dodged, barring huge teeth and shrieking as it bounced off a wooden support. 

“This could just be a one-off attack!” Abe answered, fingers buried in the thick fur of the macaque he was holding away from his face. With a wordless yell he tossed it away, ripping another great, tearing hole through the paper walls.

“You honestly believe that?” Kazuko called. Her club cracked against the head of another attacker, breaking into two uneven lengths. She snarled and whirled them at the monkeys, intimidating. Abe was impressed all over again – she knew some form of martial arts, and not just what the US Army had taught her.

Abe rushed the troop of monkeys, mouth open wide to let a great, leonine roar bellow forth. The macaques scattered from his path. Those who didn’t get out of the way in time were knocked aside.

Kazuko pushed her parents after him. Hinata refused to move, staring mutely at her husband, and Michael was forced to pull her along. Kazuko brought up the rear, mindful of possible attacks from animals who were already down but not out.

Abe hustled the Wilsons out to the waiting Jeep. Kazuko fired up the engine and they roared away, the macaques bounding out of the house in mad pursuit. Kazuko put her foot down and they were left behind.

*****

“Go back in the living room,” Mitch ordered his ex-wife. “Get everyone ready. If I’m right, we have to leave right now.”

“What? Mitch, I don’t understand –”

“Now, Audra!”

Audra scurried away, Clem following her with a solemn, anxious look on her face.

Empty beer bottle in hand, raised by the neck like a club, Mitch crept along the hall toward the kitchen. He heard snuffling from behind the closed door, heard the click of heavy claws on the linoleum. 

“Why does it always have to be goddamn wolves?” he grunted. Then, before he could give himself more time to think, he barrelled into the door and banged it open.

The wolf – a massive timber wolf with orange eyes and shaggy black fur – had been directly behind it. The animal was knocked over. But it righted itself quicker than Mitch could ever have anticipated, a snarl already ripping out of its throat – 

Mitch brought the beer bottle down on the wolf’s unprotected head. It squealed and dropped, shattered glass raining around it as it fell.

“Mitch?” It was Audra, with Clem clutched protectively behind her. Justin’s parents, an elderly lady and even more elderly gent, stood behind her, and Justin stood behind them. 

“Quick,” he said, “get into the garage while the path is clear. Get to your truck and go.”

“Go where?”

“Son, I’m not leaving my home because of a single mangy wolf!” Justin’s father growled. “Let me get my shotgun –”

The howl of dozens of wolves filled the air, even louder now that the kitchen window was broken. A large, wedge-shaped head poked its nose through the gap; Mitch snatched up a skillet, left to dry on the draining board, and lunged for the wolf. It danced back, snarling and snapping.

“Let’s get in the truck, honey,” Justin’s father said hastily, putting his arm around his wife.

They trooped past Mitch toward the garage. “Get to D.C,” he urged Justin and Audra as they hurried past. “There’s a protected military facility there, Fort McNair, you’ll be safe there –”

“What about you?” Clem demanded, tears pricking her eyes. 

“Well, someone’s gotta make sure the wolves don’t get to Goldilocks, right?”

“That was bears!” she shouted, indignant and terrified all at once.

“Baby, let’s go,” Audra said, hustling her daughter toward the garage. “Mitch will follow when he can, right?”

“Right.” He hefted the skillet. One skillet, against a pack of wolves. 

He was so getting eaten. He wished he’d been able to tell Jamie one last time that he loved her, and that this time he really – _really_ – meant it. 

*****

There were rats everywhere. _Everywhere._ Jamie didn’t have a clue how she was going to get out of the coffee shop, but she knew that she couldn’t just sit here and wait for the rats to eat her. She owed it to herself – owed it to Mitch – to escape. 

Her desperately seeking eyes flitted across, and then came back to, a fire extinguisher behind the counter. It was only a small one, designed to put out any fires among the coffee filters, but it would do. It would have to do.

“You can do this,” she said over and over again, psyching herself up, “you can do this.” 

With a feral yell she exploded out from behind the fallen table and made a run for the counter. People – alive or dead, she had no way of knowing – lay where they’d fallen, covered in blood and unmoving. 

Hundreds of rats chittered and scampered after her. She threw herself at the counter and rolled over it, crushing several rats in the process and trying to shield her face as best she could. She landed on the floor, hard enough to make her cry out, but there was no time to feel sorry for herself. 

She grabbed the fire extinguisher and brought it around in a hard arc, knocking the nearest rats aside. Her teeth were barred and she was snarling, almost as feral as the attacking rats.

She scrambled to her feet, pulling the pin as she moved, and started squeezing the handle. Cold white foam splattered over the floor, the furniture, and any rat in her path. She swung it from side to side as she ran.

She slipped on the foam and went down hard, banging her chin against a fallen chair. Dazed, she clutched her face and rolled over, trying to get up. 

A rat sank its teeth into her hand. She screamed and flailed around, dragging the rat with her as she moved, trying to shake it off. She smacked it a few times against the fire extinguisher and finally it fell off. The other rats stayed back, unwilling to cross the lake of cold foam.

Jamie snatched up the extinguisher again, holding it with both hands. They were slippery with blood and foam but she couldn’t – wouldn’t – let that stop her. She kept up the steady spray until she was almost at the front of the shop.

A few drops of spluttering foam signalled the end of the extinguisher. Jamie chucked it behind her and ran, the shriek of rats high and painful in her ears.

*****

A sleek black car shrieked to a halt at a small military airstrip. Chloe, Jackson, Natalie and Jean-Michel got out, sharp eyes on the skies. There wasn’t a bird in sight… for now.

*****

“Do you think we will have to use these guns?” Abe asked, tense, as they ran into the military aircraft they’d recently vacated. 

Kazuko made sure that her parents were safely on board before signalling to an engineer to close the boarding ramp. 

“At this point I would say anything was possible!”

*****

Mitch defended the kitchen until he heard the sound of Justin’s truck pulling out of the garage. The window, though the glass was broken and shattered, was a small one and easily defensible. He’d be OK until…

The smash of glass from the living room indicated that another wolf had gained access to the house. The windows in that room were larger. Much larger. Skillet in hand, he darted out into the hall – only to come face to face with another member of the pack.

It was difficult to say who was the more startled, though the wolf certainly recovered quicker. Even while Mitch was lifting the heavy skillet, the wolf lunged forward and clamped its jaws around his calf. Mitch yelled and slammed his impromptu weapon down on the wolf’s head; he had to bang again and again to get the damned animal to let go.

Mitch’s pants leg was soaked with blood. This was the second wolf bite he’d had to endure, and it hurt just as badly as the first, though luckily – if any bite could be said to be lucky! – it was the other leg.

He swung again. The wolf finally dropped. Mitch limped out of the house, sweating with pain, and broke into a stumbling run as several other wolves streaked around to the front of the house. 

His car was parked in the drive. Fumbling with his keys and the skillet, he lurched to the driver’s door, wrenched it open, and slammed it shut – just before the lead wolf banged against it.

Mitch reversed off the drive at speed. Wolves scattered as he accelerated away.

*****

Mitch’s vehicle struggled into Fort McNair hours later. The guards took one look at him, recognised his face, and waved him through. He brought the car to a stumbling halt just inside the gate, opened the door, and fell out. 

Jamie – who’d been keeping an eye on the entrance, worrying nervously at her nails – saw him on the security screen. She called for a medic and ran out to him.

*****

When Mitch came to he was in a bed. His head felt muzzy and he was wearing one of those God-awful hospital gowns. And his leg was screaming.

Movement at his side made him look around; he saw Jamie sat in an uncomfortable looking chair. She’d dozed off, a magazine in her lap, and was now slumped in the chair. She looked exhausted – 

Then he noticed her wounds.

“God, Jamie, what happened to you?”

She jerked awake so hard that she dropped the magazine. She blinked and focussed on him.

“It’s nothing,” she said, voice still thick with sleep.

He reached out and caught her hands. There were both bandaged. He traced his fingers over the scratches on her wrists and arms. Her face was bruised.

“Rats,” she sighed. “I hate rats. What’s your story?” she said, nodding toward his leg. 

He twitched the thin sheet aside to reveal a large dressing. “Wolves,” he grimaced. “Guess I’m gonna have me a matching set of scars.”

“Why is this happening?” she demanded, her expression crumbling. She looked away, but not before Mitch saw the tears she’d tried to hide. “We worked so hard to make it _stop,_ and now…”

“Come here,” he said, scooting across on the bed to give her space. She curled up next to him without reservation. He kissed her forehead, mindful of her bruises. “I don’t know why it’s happening again, but you know what?”

“What?” She looked up at him with all the familiar Jamie hope.

“We’re gonna find out. And then we’re gonna make it stop. Permanently.”

*****

“Never again,” Jackson said, striding over the tarmac. “I am _never_ getting on a plane again!”

“I second that,” Chloe said. She had to lengthen her stride to keep up with him. “At least we didn’t crash.”

“But it was a touch and go thing, _n’cest pas?”_ Jean-Michel said, catching up with them. Natalie lagged behind. 

“You, uh, you don’t need to remind me.”

*****

Abe and Kazuko ushered her parents through the endless corridors of Fort McNair. 

“You do this kind of thing for a living, son?” Michael asked, holding his wife close. 

“No, sir, I do not.” Abe was adamant. “Before the Beast Rebellion, I was a tour guide. I led rich tourists around the wild safari. I never expected the wild safari to come and say hello.”

“You handled yourself pretty well against those monkeys,” Michael continued. “You ever been in the military?”

“Yes.” Abe said no more.

Kazuko rushed to fill the awkward silence. “Mom, Dad, your rooms are just through here.”

*****

Mitch, Jamie, Jackson, Abe, Chloe, Kazuko, Amelia Sage – plus a group of scientists rushed in as quickly as possible from other parts of the world – all met in a large conference room.

“Mr. Jackson,” Amelia opened the discussion, “we’re all here with the same question – why did the vaccine stop working? You and your team were so sure it was the solution to our problem. We’ve spent millions – _billions_ – developing this cure. Is it all for nothing?”

Murmurs of agreement – and discontent – met her comment. Angry discontent. 

“It worked.” Jackson was quick to defend his work and the work of his friends. “The animals returned to their usual behaviour. It worked!”

“So why has it stopped?”

“I have a number of theories,” Mitch said. He fidgeted, uncomfortable, as every eye in the room turned to him. “One, it just plain wore off. I don’t put a lot of weight behind that theory though, because stem cell treatment doesn’t work like that. Two, and here’s the theory I like the most, they’ve evolved a resistance to the damned cure.”

“How is that even possible?”

“Reiden Global.” Jamie spat the words, her voice laced with poison. “They’re still using the mother cell to increase the efficiency of their products, aren’t they? So the animals are _still_ being exposed. They’re still evolving.”

“Ms. Campbell, that’s slander!” one scientist called. “Actionable slander!”

“Of course you’d say that.” She glared at him. “How much is Reiden paying you?”

“Leave Reiden to me.” Amelia’s voice was uncharacteristically grim. “If they’re still using the mother cell, they won’t be for long. What I need for you to do now is work on a way to stop what’s happening now.”

Mitch groaned. “How do you propose we do that?”

“I don’t know, make the cure stronger or something. You’re the scientist.”

“Veterinary pathologist!”

“The answer has to be in my father’s notes,” Jackson interjected. “We still haven’t had time to work through everything he left behind.”

“Well, Mr. Jackson, I suggest you get on it. The world is waiting.” 

*****

Chloe walked into the mess hall. There wasn’t a soldier in sight. It was late at night; everyone had retired except Natalie. Good. It was only Natalie she wanted to talk to.

“I’m surprised you’re still awake,” Chloe said, slipping easily into French. 

“I don’t sleep much anymore.” Natalie glanced at her once, then looked away.

“Where is Jean-Michel?”

“How should I know? I’m not his keeper.”

“Nat, please…”

“Please? Please what? Please be in the same room as you? Please breathe the same air as you?”

Tears sprung to Chloe’s eyes. “How many times must I beg you?”

“As many times as you like.” Natalie’s voice was cold, her expression hard. “You let a man come into my home and _torture_ me, Chloe! Your own flesh and blood! Just so you could go off and be a damned hero!”

“I helped save your life. I helped save everybody’s lives,” Chloe cried, “and you still can’t forgive me?”

“Forgive you? Forgive you? You _destroyed_ my life, can’t you understand that?” She jumped to her feet and began pacing. “The things that man did to me –”

“I know! I know exactly what he did to you, because I was made to watch every second!”

“Then you know my pain. You know how I suffered,” Natalie growled. “I have terrible scars. Jean-Michel won’t touch me anymore. Our relationship might as well be dead. That is your fault.”

“You blame _me_ for his actions?” Chloe said, voice trembling. “How can you sit there and judge after what _you_ did to me? I would have sacrificed everything for you if you hadn’t _slept with my fiancé!”_

“We’re coming back to this?” Natalie was incredulous. 

_“Everything_ comes back to this!”

“If you expect me to be grateful to you for bringing me to the States, you’re wrong.” Natalie spat. “I would rather have died in Paris.”

*****

“I can’t believe we’re right back where we started,” Jamie sighed. Dressed in pale pink sleep shorts and a tank, she climbed into bed beside Mitch. He was reading a sheaf of papers – copies of Robert Oz’s research. She knew Jackson and dozens of scientists were also pouring over them.

“Nature has a depressing way of being circular,” Mitch replied, absent. His sleepwear consisted of tartan shorts and a white tank. “Death. Life. Growth. Competition. You see it once, and then it all keeps coming back around.”

Jamie leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You’re a barrel of laughs tonight. You taken any of those pain meds yet?”

“Nope.”

“Uh oh. There was a tone there, Mitch. Why was there a tone?”

“What? There was no tone, what are you talking about?” But he didn’t look at her.

“What’s bothering you? Come on, talk to me.”

“Nothing’s bothering me. Apart from, you know, the whole ‘animals trying to kill us again’ thing.”

“You’re wearing a ‘bothered’ face…”

He put the sheaf of papers on the bed beside him, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes.

“Why did you hang up on me, Jamie?”

“What? When?”

“You know when. I called you, we were talking about Monopoly, and I was trying to tell you that I loved you. Then you hung up.”

“Oh.” Jamie sat back, putting a bit of space between them. She picked restlessly at the blanket. “That time.”

“Audra said maybe you’d lost signal or something.” Mitch slid his glasses back on, pushing them into place. “But it wasn’t that at all, was it? Or you wouldn’t look so guilty.”

“It was nothing, honestly…”

“‘Nothing’ doesn’t look like that.”

“Alright! So I was coming out of this interview…”

“An interview?” He turned to stare at her, incredulous. “When were you going to tell me you’d been to an _interview?”_

“Guess it just slipped my mind when I saw that you’d been mauled by a wolf,” she shot back. “Again.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alright. So you were coming out of an interview, and then…?”

Jamie picked at the blanket again. “I ran into Ethan. We grabbed a coffee and, well, that’s when the rats attacked.”

“You hung up on me to go drink coffee with your ex-boyfriend.”

“OK, so I know how that sounds, but it totally wasn’t like that!”

But Mitch had heard enough. He pushed the blanket back and got out of bed, snatching up the research papers, and stalked toward the door. 

“I told you that I _loved_ you, Jamie,” he growled as he walked around the edge of the bed. “I thought that meant something to you. Maybe I should just have kept my emotions shut down.”

“It wasn’t like that!” she called, climbing forward on the bed. The blanket fell away from her as she reached for him. “Please, Mitch! Where are you going?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. Just… somewhere you’re not.”

“He left me,” she said, sitting back on her haunches. She looked defeated, her face drawn. Tears glimmered in her eyes. 

“What?”

“When the rats attacked, he left me behind to save his own skin.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel sympathetic?”

“I chose _you,_ Mitch. What Ethan did made me realise that I’d made the right choice. I love you. I really do.”

Mitch paused at the door. “I don’t – I don’t open up to people easily, Jamie. I opened up to you, showed you how I really feel. Now I feel like you’ve thrown it back in my face.”

Then he left. 

*****

Chloe remained in the mess hall long after Natalie left, lost in her own misery. She supposed Jackson would come and find her – eventually – but his nose was buried so deeply in his father’s research it could be hours before he took a break. If he even thought it necessary to take a break. She knew from experience that once Jackson had the bit between his teeth, he’d run with it. 

So she sat at her table, alone, as the night aged around her. She only looked up when someone sat opposite her.

“Jean-Michel.” Her voice was raspy. She knew her face must be blotchy, but right now she didn’t care. “Have you talked to Natalie?”

“She’s unhappy,” he replied with a shrug. 

“Unhappy. That’s one way of putting it. She says you barely touch her anymore.”

“More like she won’t let me,” Jean-Michel sighed. “I try, but… what’s a man to do when the woman he loves turns away from him?” He met Chloe’s eyes, held them. “It makes me wonder… did I choose the right sister?”

“You _had_ the right sister.” Her voice was flat. “Until you changed your mind.”

Jean-Michel put his hand over hers and squeezed. “I think I made a mistake, Chloe.”

“It’s – it’s too late,” she said. “I’ve moved on. Jackson…”

“You’re miserable, but where is he now? He should be comforting you, not losing himself in the ramblings of a madman.”

“I don’t believe Robert Oz was mad!”

“You can believe what you want. That doesn’t mean it’s true. The evidence speaks for itself.”

Chloe sagged, sinking low in her chair. She ran her hands over her face. 

“Did I do the right thing, Jean-Michel? I worked so hard to put this group together. I put myself in danger to find a way to stop the Beast Rebellion, put Nat in danger. I feel as if everything I’ve done has been a waste of time.”

“You believe Natalie was tortured in vain.”

She stared at him, eyes wild, and nodded.

“Listen to me, Chloe.” He stroked the back of her hand. “Every action you took was because you believed, deep in your soul, your heart –” he stroked her wrist, “ – that what you were doing was right. Hold on to your convictions. You’re stronger than you think.”

Chloe smiled, her whole face lightening. “You always knew the right thing to say.”

“I could say a lot more… without talking.” His fingers explored the soft curve of her arm, curling around the delicate bone.

“My sister… Jackson…”

“They’re not here. They’re not taking care of the people they profess to love. _We_ are here now.” Jean-Michel stood and drew her up with him. Chloe let herself be led. “We understand one another, you and me, in a way the others never can.”

Chloe searched his face, eyes roving over the familiar hard planes she’d once traced with her fingers… with her tongue. 

She grabbed him by the back of the neck and kissed him. 

*****

Jackson, eyes burning, finally looked up from his research. The answer was in here somewhere, it just had to be. His father had devoted years of his life – decades – to this problem. 

His mind kept coming back to Evan Lee Hartley and the defiant pupil. He remembered the way Hartley had just stood there, surrounded by wolves. His attitude, his bearing – well, if he’d been a wolf, Jackson would have known he was the alpha. 

He remembered his conversation with Jari. That Hartley had tried to make himself evolve… 

Looking around the room he shared with Chloe, he realised now that she was gone. Had been gone for some time, actually. He could really use her as a sounding board right now; she had a way of taking his problems, absorbing them into herself, and presenting them back to him as solutions. Just one more reason – one of many – why he wanted to marry her. 

He stretched and stood. Time to go and find her.

*****

He met Natalie in the corridors. 

“Have you seen your sister anywhere?” Jackson asked, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ve looked all over the place and I can’t find her. This place is a real rabbit’s warren.”

“I have not seen her for hours.” Natalie was stiff, her voice laced with repressed emotions. For all that she’d allowed Chloe and Jackson to visit them for Christmas, it was clear now more than ever that she hadn’t really wanted them there.

*****

Chloe finished fastening the buttons on her blouse. Jean-Michel leaned back in bed, lounging, tired satisfaction on his face. 

“I have to go,” Chloe said. Her movements were jerky, her tone unsteady. “We must tell no one of this.”

“Secrets cannot remain hidden forever –”

“No one, do you understand? I will _not_ lose Jackson over one stupid mistake!”

Jean-Michel sat up, stung. “What we did was beautiful, it was meant to be. You’re trying to tell me you thought it was a mistake?”

“I _know_ it was a mistake. Promise me you will tell no one!”

Jean-Michel shrugged, resigned. “Maybe I was wrong to choose either sister. You are both so cold.”

Chloe stifled a frustrated sound and reached for her jacket. She opened the door and stopped, her world crashing around her, when she saw Jackson in the hall. And Natalie. 

*****

“Chloe, there you are! I’ve been looking all over the place for you!”

_Of all the doors he could have stopped outside,_ Chloe thought, panic rising inside her. She’d deliberately brought Jean-Michel to an unassigned room.

“You should not have looked so hard,” she muttered, looking away from him. She tried to leave the room and close the door before he could get a glimpse of Jean-Michel, still lying in bed. But from the way his eyes widened – from the way his mouth hung open – she knew she was too late.

“Chloe…?” 

When he looked at her she was staggered by the pain in his gaze. His eyes were red-rimmed from sudden unshed tears. 

“Jackson –” She reached for him, but he backed away, holding up a hand to ward her off.

“Tell me that’s not what it looks like,” he demanded. “Please, _please_ tell me that’s not what it looks like!”

“What is happening?” Natalie enquired, peering over Jackson’s shoulder. She saw Jean-Michel – the man was out of bed and pulling on his clothes – but it was too late. Far too late.

“No,” she said. Her voice was raw. “This is… too much. You bring me here,” and she turned hate-filled eyes on her sister, “and steal the man I love! No! It is too much!”

“If you love him why do you keep pushing him away?” Chloe shot back, furious. 

“I – I don’t have time for this family crap,” Jackson said, drawing a hand down over his face. He looked as if he’d aged ten years. “I’ve got a world to save. People who actually _deserve_ to be saved.”

Chloe flinched as if she’d been slapped. “Jackson!”

He turned and stumbled away, waving a dismissive hand at her. She couldn’t see the tears trickling down his cheeks, and he was careful to keep his face turned from her. 

“I wish I _had_ left you in Paris,” Chloe snarled at her sister. “Both of you!”

*****

Hours later Chloe found herself in the military base’s control room, looking at a bank of wall-mounted monitors – the security system.

“I cannot find my sister,” she told the young woman working the controls. “Nor her partner.” She tried to hide the urgency in her voice, but the soldier must have caught it anyway.

“Just relax, ma’am, I’ll find them.”

She called up military data – Homeland Security files on Natalie and Jean-Michel – to access their photos. She ran them through image recognition software that fed directly into the video feed. 

“I have them, ma’am. Natalie Tousignant left the base an hour ago, Jean-Michel Lion followed. Both were on foot.”

“What?” Chloe leaned over the woman’s shoulder, peering desperately at the images on the monitor. She watched as Natalie – moving erratically and dabbing at her face – was waved through the base’s final security point. “This is not possible! Do you people not know what is going on outside? _Mon dieu!”_ She let out a stream of agitated French. 

“Ma’am, we don’t keep prisoners here.” The soldier was noticeably cooler now. “We offered sanctuary to key government officials and members of the scientific community, but people are free to leave as they wish.”

She manipulated the controls and the video footage sped forward. Chloe watched as Jean-Michel left Fort McNair, almost running, looking warily around him. Who’d have thought? Maybe he really did love her sister after all. Which made what she had done – what _they_ had done – even more tragic. 

“They are going to be killed,” she whispered. “Can you track them?”

“Already on it, ma’am.”

Chloe waited, tense, as the soldier pressed buttons and moved the mouse. She stopped, let the recording play.

“I picked this up on CCTV a couple blocks away,” she said. She leaned back in the chair. “I’m very sorry, ma’am.”

Jean-Michel had caught up to Natalie. Unfortunately, so had a pack of wolves. Chloe wondered – in a slow, detached kind of way – if it was the same pack that had chased them out of D.C. 

She turned away as the first wolf lunged. She didn’t – couldn’t – watch any more.

*****

“Jackson…”

Chloe knocked on the door of their new Research Room, almost a carbon copy of the one they’d had at Walker Air Force Base, guessing – correctly – that Jackson would go straight there. Out of deference she hadn’t entered, needing to hear his permission for her to come in, needing to know that he forgave her enough to at least look at her. 

“I can’t talk to you right now, Chloe.”

She leaned her forehead against the door, tears squeezing from between her closed eyes. 

“They’ve gone,” she said, voice rough. “Natalie and… Jean-Michel. They left the base.”

“Not my problem.”

“They’re _dead,_ Jackson!”

“Still not my problem!”

*****

Chloe sat on the bed she’d shared with Jackson. She held a bottle of pills in her hand. Sleeping pills. She hadn’t had to use them in years – not since her early days in the DGSE, when she’d been so nervous it had been impossible for her to unwind – but she still kept them in her purse, still carried them with her everywhere she went. 

She toyed with the bottle, rolling it from hand to hand. Tears slid down her face, unheeded, to drip onto the bottle and into her lap.

_My sister is dead. Jean-Michel is dead. I cheated on the man I love with the man I used to love. I betrayed Natalie, I betrayed Jackson…_

Self-recriminations tumbled through her head, coming thick and fast, until she was unable – or unwilling – to block them out. 

She unscrewed the bottle. Shook a handful of pills into her palm. Swallowed them, one… by one… by one.

_I will go to sleep now,_ she thought, _and never wake up. That would be best for everybody. Nobody needs a failure on their team… or in their family._

*****

Outside the base, the wolves – more than there had ever been before – began to howl.


	9. Hold What You Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the animals are rampaging through the base, Jackson races against time to save Chloe, and comes to a startling conclusion about the ultimate aim of his father’s research. Trapped and injured, Jamie and Mitch have a long-awaited heart-to-heart.  
> Amelia Sage authorises the use of an untried, untested knock-out gas, with potentially fatal consequences.   
> Jackson asks Chloe a question that could make or break them.

Jackson locked himself in the Research Room and tried to work. It was impossible. He kept replaying that image in his mind – that single image – of Chloe standing in the doorway, trying to close the door before he could see Jean-Michel. 

She’d slept with him. Chloe had slept with her ex-fiancé. He shouldn’t have been surprised; it was the way the world worked. But damn, it _hurt._ He loved her. He’d thought she loved him. Hell, he’d been planning to ask her to marry him! That wasn’t going to happen now.

He leaned far back in the chair, tilting it dangerously on its rear legs. The only woman in years he’d opened himself up to, and she’d done this. He didn’t understand. Why would she do it? Was she genuinely still attracted to Jean-Michel, or had it just been a way to get back at her sister?

He had to know. He had to know why she’d done it. Even though he felt as if his heart had been shredded, he wanted to forgive her. When the world was falling apart around them, when the Beast Rebellion was on the rise again, he _needed_ to forgive her. But to do that, he had to understand why she’d done it.

*****

He went back to their room. It was late at night; surely, if she was able to sleep, that’s where she’d be. He pushed open the door, flicked on the light. 

She was, indeed, sleeping. She lay on her side on the bed.

But. She was still wearing all her clothes.

But. There was an open pill bottle on the bedside table.

But. She wasn’t breathing.

“Oh God, Chloe, no!”

He ran to her. In that moment everything was forgiven, forgotten, as if it had never happened; fear crystallised into a hard lump in his chest. It ripped through him.

He scooped her up and ran. Doctor. He had to get her to a doctor. 

*****

Mitch wandered the corridors, aimless, passing only the occasional guard. None of them batted an eyelid at the sight of him, barefoot and in sleep shorts and a tank top; he’d developed a tendency to prowl the base late at night. 

The place was quiet as the grave. Ironic, really, when you considered the madhouse the outside world was becoming. 

Eventually he found himself in a VIP lounge. There was a bar. Just what he needed – half a bottle of Jack followed by sweet oblivion. Of course, tomorrow’s hangover would be vicious, but he didn’t care. Tomorrow was a world away. 

“I wouldn’t have thought that a man in love would have any sorrows to drown,” he heard as he made his way to the bar. He stopped, looked around: - Abe.

“Then, my friend, you’ve never been in love before. What’re you drinking?”

“Only water. I wish to keep a clear head.”

Mitch rummaged behind the bar and came out with a bottle of whisky and a tumbler. He sank into a padded chair beside Abe.

“What has happened between you and Jamie?” Abe asked.

“I don’t really want to talk about it.” Mitch poured out a splash of burnished liquid. Knocked it back. Poured another.

“Forgive me, but you do. Otherwise you would have taken that bottle and gone.”

Mitch held his refilled glass up, studying the way light fractured as it was filtered through the drink.

“Jamie ran into her old boyfriend after she came out of an interview. They went for a coffee.”

“That is all?”

“All? All?” Mitch knocked back his second glass, poured another. “It was enough. More than enough.”

“I take it that you didn’t know about the interview.”

“Nope. Said she forgot to tell me after my arrival.” He waved at his leg, bandaged and hurting. 

“What bothers you the most? That she had an interview, or that she didn’t tell you about it?”

Mitch opened his mouth, paused, closed it.

“She wants to move on.” He stared at his drink. “I just know she does. A new job means she’ll be independent again, she won’t have to stay here…”

“With you?” Abe supplied.

Mitch raised his glass in an ironic salute. “The world’s her oyster. Or it was, before the Beast Rebellion started again.”

“And then she had coffee with another man.”

“His name’s Ethan. I’ve seen his picture in the paper, guy’s got looks. Why wouldn’t she pick him?”

“You do yourself a disservice, Mitch. And have you asked her why they broke up in the first place?”

“No. We haven’t talked about it.”

“And have you asked why they had coffee together?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Mitch’s mouth twisted into a self-deprecating sneer.

“So obvious that you might have jumped to the wrong conclusion. My friend, I know you are both in love, but that is not enough – you also have to be honest with one another. Ask her why they broke up, ask her why they went for coffee.”

“He was with her when the rats attacked,” Mitch said. Now he was only sipping the whisky. “She told me he left her there. Just ran out on her.”

“And she came back to you,” Abe cautioned. “She could have looked for Ethan, but she did not. She came back to you.”

“Yeah.” Mitch put the glass down. “Yeah. You’re right. Why is it you’re right about everything?”

“I am not,” Abe laughed, “but you and Jamie are my friends… and I am right about _you.”_

*****

Jackson was halfway to the Infirmary when the alarms sounded. But he didn’t stop.

“God, what _now?”_ he shouted, brushing past mobilising soldiers. When he reached the Infirmary he grabbed the nearest doctor.

“This woman’s taken an overdose,” he barked. “You have to look at her right now.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, young man, we’re under attack!” The doctor was a small man, thin and mousy, with a receding hairline.

“The rest of the world can go to hell right now,” Jackson snarled. “Just do your damned job and save her goddamned life!”

“Alright, alright… what has she taken?”

Jackson tossed him the half-empty bottle of pills. The doctor caught it in one hand, surprisingly dextrous, and peered at it.

“Hmm. OK. When did she take it?” he asked, waving them over to an empty bed. Jackson put Chloe down, then ran agitated hands through his hair. 

“Uh… couple of hours, no more.”

“Nurse! Prepare for an OD.”

*****

Jamie was done with letting Mitch stew in his own pity party. The man was good at beating himself up – too good – and good at making other people feel as if they should beat themselves up. While having a drink with Ethan hadn’t been her best move, there’d been a positive outcome – it had crystallised her thinking about Mitch. She wasn’t about to hold anything back from him, not anymore. 

But she had to find him first. 

She dragged on jeans and a T-shirt, shoved her feet into sneakers and headed out. When he was down he liked to drink. Find the bar, find the man. 

That was when the alarms went off. 

*****

Mitch was wandering back to find Jamie when the alarm sounded. He should have been terrified – the last time alarms had gone off in a military base, they’d been invaded – but all he felt now was weary and numb. He knew that was a bad thing, but he was having trouble making himself care. All these highs and lows with Jamie – they were really taking it out of him. _Welcome to the real world, Mitch, it’s been waiting for you. For a long time._

Maybe he shouldn’t have had that third whisky. 

He turned a corner. Jamie barrelled into him, lost her balance, and fell on her ass. She landed with a startled yelp that broke through that numb veil he’d drawn around himself. 

Huh. Maybe he did care, after all. 

He helped her stand. She let him. Mitch stood there, feeling awkward as the alarms blatted around them. He didn’t have a clue what to say –

Jamie threw her arms around him. Her scent, her warmth, enveloped him; he returned the hug with a hungry desperation that startled him. 

“We, uh, we’re under attack,” Jamie said, easing away from him.

“So the alarms say. What d’you think it is this time? Triads? Animals?”

She tilted her head to one side and treated him to a half-smile. “Don’t really wanna hang around to find out.”

“The lady talks sense.” He offered her a flourishing bow that made her laugh, even though it was a shrill, slightly panicked laugh. Soldiers ran past them, buffeting them, but they stood firm. “Maybe we should, uh, retreat to somewhere safer?”

The power went off. The lights died, plunging them into darkness. 

*****

Jackson’s heart hammered in his chest when the lights died. They came on a few seconds later. Relief – as vast as the ocean they’d flown across to come back to the States – flooded his system, making him sag against the wall. 

Medical staff buzzed around Chloe. They’d laid her on a cot, half-covered by a privacy screen, while they worked on her. 

“Is she gonna be OK?” he demanded. The doctor, barking commands to his nurse, ignored him. “Is she gonna be OK?” he asked again. “Tell me!”

“We’re trying to concentrate here, Mr. Oz! If you can’t stop asking questions, go wait in the hall!”

“Your bedside manner sucks,” Jackson muttered, but he was already turning away.

“Trying to save a life here, not sooth your feelings.”

Jackson ducked out into the hall. His hair was a mess where he’d repeatedly run his fingers through the strands. He couldn’t lose Chloe, he just couldn’t. She’d become his rock.

But if she recovered – and he _had_ to believe that she would – what awaited her? The knowledge that she’d destroyed their relationship with one stupid move? The knowledge that her sister and ex-fiancé were dead?

He would fix it. He couldn’t bring the dead back to life, but he would fix the precious thing he and Chloe had made between them. Somehow. 

When he turned a corner he was almost blind to his surroundings. Not so blind, however, that he didn’t spot the three wolves at the far end of the corridor. The three wolves who sped toward him, teeth barred in angry snarls. 

*****

When the power came back on Mitch found Jamie plastered to his side. Despite the uncertainty of the situation, he found her proximity soothing. 

“We have been breached! We have been breached!”

Abe almost barrelled into them as he ran down the corridor. They just managed to stand aside as he went past.

“Abe!” Kazuko was on his heels. Where had she come from? Mitch grimaced. There was too much going on; too much, too fast. “Come with me! You two, get to your room and stay there!”

“Man or beast?” Mitch asked as they dashed away.

“Beast!” Abe yelled back. “Lots and lots of beasts!”

Mitch grabbed Jamie’s hand and pulled her away, back toward their room. The klaxons were still screaming.

“Whoah, not that way.” They skidded to a halt; two big wolves blocked the corridor. “I’m not even gonna ask how they got in.” They spun and dashed back the way they’d come – only to find another two wolves blocking their path.

“Oh,” Jamie gulped, “oh God. Oh my God. This is it. We’re donna die.”

“I didn’t rescue you from the ass-end of nowhere just to lose you here,” Mitch bit out. He was looking at the walls, the floor, the ceiling. There were no other doors.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for an exit. And we have a winner,” he said, pointing to a hatch in the ceiling. 

“What is that? Air conditioning?”

“No time to find out.” Mitch knelt, casting a wary eye at the slowly approaching wolves, and laced his fingers into a stirrup. “Up you go.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Does this look like the face of a man who’s kidding?”

Jamie stepped into the make-shift stirrup, bracing herself on Mitch’s shoulder. Still keeping an eye on the approaching wolves, he gave a great heave – letting out a grunt of effort – and hoisted Jamie high. 

“Did you put on a few pounds?” he wheezed.

She wobbled precariously, free hand flailing for the ceiling grate, until she managed to brace her thigh against his face.

“I swear to God, Mitch, if the wolves don’t kill you _I_ will! _Higher!”_

“I think I’m gonna rupture something,” he bit out, but did manage to lift her another few inches. 

Jamie banged on the grate. It was loose and came free with the first blow, revealing a dark opening just large enough for a person.

“Yes!”

Getting her arms over the lip, she jumped – almost driving Mitch to his knees – and managed to wriggle through the opening.

All four wolves howled. Mitch cringed, trying to watch both sets at once. Jamie wriggled some more, elbows, hands, knees and feet banging against the ceiling tiles, until she was able to stick her head out.

“It’s storage space!” she called down. “Get up here, Mitch!”

“Ah… not sure I can…”

“Give me your hands!”

He looked up at her, smiling sadly. “You’re not strong enough to lift me, Jamie.”

“I will lift you if I have to rip my goddamn arms out of their sockets!” she snapped back. Looking frantically around, she spotted a pipeline emerging from the wall of the roof space.

“This has gotta work,” she muttered. Yanking off her T-shirt, revealing the tank top beneath, she ripped it down the seam. The cheap Chinese import might just save Mitch’s life. “Please God, let this work.”

She tied one end around the pipe, quickly and efficiently fastening a knot. She tied the other around her ankle, pulling the knots until she thought her foot was going to turn blue. Then, taking a deep breath, she hurled herself out through the opening.

“What the hell are you doing?” Mitch yelled, tearing his gaze from the approaching wolves to her. The lead wolf – a massive animal with green eyes – pawed the ground and broke into a run. The others followed. 

“Shup up and climb me!” Jamie shouted, reaching for him.

“You’re crazy!” He grabbed her arms as she hung down. “How are you holding us up?”

“Shut up and _climb!”_

Terrified, he let her arms take his weight and hung in the air. She groaned, the sound more of pain than of effort. God, he was hurting her. He was hurting her!

_“Climb,”_ she said through gritted teeth. 

He swung his legs up and out of the way just as the wolves reached them – but not quickly enough to stop the lead wolf from clamping its jaws around his already-wounded leg. Mitch screamed as he felt those sharp teeth rip through his flesh, as they crushed his leg bones. Jamie screamed – pain, horror, he didn’t know – and hauled him back.

He kicked out, his free foot landing a solid blow on the back of the wolf’s head. It whimpered but didn’t let go. He kicked again, blood – his blood! – frothing between its jaws. The wolf finally let go, dancing back with its tail between its legs. The other wolves snapped and snarled.

Somehow Mitch got his leg over the lip of the opening. Then the other leg. He wrenched his back in an effort to get his lower body in. He let go of Jamie and grabbed for support within their hiding space. His hands closed around solid pipework. Then he turned and hauled Jamie back.

The wolves circled underneath them, eyes fixed on the opening. Jamie and Mitch collapsed against each other, sweating and bleeding but very much alive.

*****

Jackson sprinted back toward the Infirmary, his one thought protecting Chloe. She was unconscious, maybe dying, and unable to defend herself.

He rushed into the large room, closing the doors behind him, and looked for something – anything – to keep them closed. His eyes closed on an IV stand. Grabbing it, he rammed it through the door handles, then jammed a chair underneath it for good measure.

“They’re right outside!” he said to the doctor. The other medical staff shied away from them. “We have to get Chloe out of here!”

“Mr. Jackson, she can’t be moved.” The doctor seized his arm to get his point across. “We’ve stabilised her, but right now she just can’t be _moved!”_

“Then neither can I,” Jackson said, shaking the doctor off. “Get out of here.”

“You can’t stay!”

“And I can’t go. I can look after myself.” _And Chloe,_ he thought. 

“You’re either brave or stupid. I can’t decide which.”

Jackson shrugged. “I’ll let you know when I find out.”

*****

The control centre was full of tense activity. Kazuko, Abe and Amelia Sage moved from monitor to monitor, tracking the animal invasion. 

“I thought this was not supposed to happen!” Abe said, his face frantic. He’d found Jackson and Chloe. The medical staff had disappeared, retreated to more secure rooms. “How is it possible?”

“We took what we thought were the necessary precautions!” Amelia was angry. “We have electrified fences. We know the wolves and bears will dig, so we sunk those fences fifteen feet below the surface.”

“Did you factor in the rats?” Abe growled. Amelia’s mouth worked, but no sounds came out. “No. I thought not. The rats cut your power, and before the backup generators could cut in,” he tapped another monitor, “your fences were trampled.”

The outside of the base was a mess. All manner of animals wandered around; it was clear the mixture of bears, wild boars, and horses had made short work of the fences. Once they were down the wolves had been able to just trot across.

“Why are we not shooting them?” Kazuko demanded. “Why can’t I hear any gunfire?”

“The, uh, the guns don’t work,” Amelia admitted.

Silence fell in the control centre as everyone – Abe, Kazuko and the operators – turned to stare at her. 

“What do you mean, the guns don’t work?”

“I’ve had reports that soldiers are firing. But the mechanisms jam, or misfire. Bullets have been spoiled, wetted, or just plain old gnawed.”

“Rats again?” Kazuko asked, sharing a look with Abe.

“It is possible,” he conceded. “They are small, easily missed, and able to squeeze through the smallest spaces. They have nimble paws and very sharp teeth. Given enough time, they can chew through metal.” 

“So the fences are down, we have only backup electricity, and now our guns don’t work.” Kazuko’s face was drawn. “Time for Plan B.”

“Lieutenant, that hasn’t been properly tested!” Amelia protested. 

“People are dying!” Kazuko pointed from one monitor to another… to another… to another. “Short of laying explosives, which I suppose we’d find the rats had also got into, this is all we have left!”

“I do not think I like the sound of this,” Abe said, slowly shaking his head. 

“I don’t either.” Kazuko turned to look at him. “But if we don’t do this, more people are going to die!”

*****

Save for Chloe, Jackson was alone. The medical staff had fled. He was OK with that. One man, one woman to protect. In a way it felt very natural to be here like this. The struggle to survive. 

There had to be a way to stop this. There _had_ to be. If he survived this, if Chloe survived this, he wouldn’t stop until he found the answer. 

Something thumped into the door. The IV stand bent, then bowed. Jackson snatched up the nearest weapon – a plastic chair – and prepared himself.

The door burst open a few seconds later. Wolves streamed in, howling and yipping with excitement… but they didn’t attack.

One wolf trotted to the front of the pack, a big male with a shaggy ruff and livid orange eyes. Jackson brandished the chair at him. The alpha – for surely he was an alpha – seemed unafraid. 

They stared at each other. Jackson saw what he’d been looking for, the defiant pupil, and for a second he hovered on an idea he’d had weeks before but had had no time to develop – Hartley’s evolution, and the idea of interconnectivity. Looking around, he saw that all the wolves bore the defiant pupil his father had described so well. They were all linked.

Evan Lee Hartley had exhibited the same ocular mutation. He’d been _in tune_ with the wolves, he’d understood them – and they’d understood him, enough to follow his command. 

“That’s it,” Jackson murmured. “That’s it. We don’t need to cure the animals. We need to cure the _people.”_

The soft hiss of gas snagged the wolves’ attention seconds before it grabbed his. He looked around, wary, worried that they might have to contend with a gas leak on top of the animal attack.

The alpha snarled at him, pawing at his nose, and then lunged. Jackson held him back with the chair, but it was desperate – with so many wolves, he had seconds at most before they took him down. Then they’d move on to Chloe. 

A wolf collapsed. Another tumbled onto its side. More wolves dropped while Jackson looked on, amazed.

A faint smell reached his nose, astringent. He sniffed but didn’t dare take his hand off the chair to cover his nose. 

As more and more wolves collapsed, he finally realised what was happening – gas. The soldiers had released some kind of knock-out gas. Kill or tranquilise, he couldn’t tell, not when his vision had begun to swim. Not when his arms felt like lead bars that could no longer support the chair’s weight. 

The alpha wolf got past his guard, but he was unsteady on his paws. Jackson turned to ward him off but he was slow, so slow. His feet felt numb. His knees unhinged and then he, too, was dropping; the chair fell from his hands and crashed to the floor. His eyelids felt too heavy to hold up.

The wolf leapt on the bed. Chloe lay there, unmoving, unaware. Helpless. Jackson’s vision slid sideways; he reached for her. 

It was too much. Blackness rose up to claim him. 

*****

Jamie and Mitch slumped against the wall of their hidey hole. The wolves still paced below. 

Jamie leaned forward and eased up the leg of her jeans, then winced as she saw the ruin of her ankle. It was swollen and bruised, the skin badly grazed. She hadn’t dared take her sneaker off. It hurt like hell, but it wasn’t life threatening. Mitch, on the other hand… well, he was slowly bleeding to death.

“That was a really stupid thing to do,” Mitch said, letting his head fall back against the pipe. His eyes were closed and he was sweating.

“Saving your life was stupid? Hold still and let me check that,” she added, reaching for his leg. She’d tied her T-shirt around his calf. It was now soaked with blood; red liquid oozed through the fabric and dripped to the floor of the storage area. 

“Leave it,” Mitch said, without opening his eyes. “If you take the pressure off I’ll definitely bleed to death. As it is, the probability is reduced to ‘probably’ rather than ‘definitely’.”

“You’re not gonna die. _Look_ at me when I’m talking to you, dammit!”

Mitch cracked his eyes open. His gaze was unsteady. 

“You should have let the wolves eat me.”

“If you say that one more time I’m gonna strangle you.”

They lapsed into uneasy silence. Below them, the wolves continued to watch. And wait.

“You and Ethan,” Mitch said eventually. 

“You wanna talk about this now?”

He gestured to his leg. “Might not get another chance. Why did you guys split up?”

Jamie sighed. “Alright. I’ll bite. It was just before I met you. I was investigating the Beast Rebellion, but back then it was just cats going missing. Right up until the lion escaped from the zoo, that is.”

“And you came to get my ‘expert opinion’.” He leaned heavily on the sarcasm. 

“I may have been just a teensy bit obsessed with Reiden Global,” she admitted. “Even though Ethan knew why and how my mother died, he still couldn’t understand why it drove me. I had a blog, ‘Girl With the Genie Tattoo’. I got a bit… ranty. It got me into trouble with my newspaper.”

“Ranty? Is that even a word?”

“I’m a journalist, it must be.” Her smile was fleeting. “Anyway, our relationship… we kept it on the DL. He said that if I gave up my quest to bring Reiden to justice, he could get me back in with the paper. And he’d make our relationship public.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“I wanted him to _support_ me! He wouldn’t do that. So I walked away.”

“Until you saw him outside the coffee shop.” Mitch’s eyes were closed again. 

“Right. I was confused, OK? What we have now… it’s complicated.” Jamie fiddled with the hem of her tank. 

“You got that right. I wasn’t sure if I loved you because what we could have had was taken away from us in that plane crash, or because I finally got you back again.”

“That’s exactly how I felt,” Jamie admitted. “When I saw Ethan, I… I wasn’t really thinking straight. I went for the interview because I thought, now that the Beast Rebellion was over, you’d want to move on with your life. You’d go back to LA, and I’d have to get on with _my_ life.”

“You thought I’d leave you behind?”

“I don’t know what I thought. I guess… I guess when I saw Ethan, I just wanted to see if that old spark was still there. I’d forgotten why we’d broken up. Then the rats attacked and _he_ left me behind, and I remembered all over again.” She reached out, put her hand on his knee. “I made the right choice, Mitch.”

“You sure about that?” He was looking at her again, eyes open, gaze clear this time. 

She moved her hand from his knee to his cheek, then leaned forward and kissed him. It was a slow, lingering kiss.

“I’m sure.”

They were silent again, but it was a comfortable, companionable silence – despite the pacing wolves below.

“I kissed Ben,” Jamie said later. Her tone was bitter. “Ben Schaffer, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Right before I killed him.”

“Aw, Jamie… you don’t need to tell me this.”

“I do. Get everything off my chest.”

“I like your chest the way it is.” 

“You’re funny.” She smiled, but it was strained. “I don’t – I don’t wanna have any secrets between us.”

Mitch’s hand found hers, squeezed it tight. 

“How did it happen?” he asked. Jamie could tell, from his tone of voice, that he really didn’t want to know. But he was making an effort… for her.

“Oh, you know, the typical – FBI agent meets journalist, that kind of thing. He was… he was nice to me, Mitch. When Even Lee Hartley ran me off the road, I was so shaken up, I couldn’t remember anything. Jackson was being an ass.”

Mitch snorted. “Yeah. He can do that.”

“But Ben was friendly. He knew the right things to say.”

“So you turned to him.”

“When he arrived at my hotel room, I’d just had a shower and I answered the door in a towel.”

“You never answer the door to _me_ in a towel.”

“I’m sure we can work on that.”

“Hey, do you smell… what is that? Some kind of gas?” 

“It’s making my eyes sting,” Jamie said, rubbing at them. Mitch held her wrists, pulled them away from her face.

“Don’t rub. You’ll make them worse. This smells like anaesthetic gas,” he added.

“Anaesthetic? You mean, like, tranquiliser gas?”

“Yup. I could do with catching up on my sleep…”

“No! Mitch, for God’s sake don’t go to sleep, not when you’re bleeding like this!” She shook him, shocked, frightened tears spilling down her face, but his eyes were fluttering. He slumped further down the wall. 

*****

When Jackson came round, he found himself staring at a plain white ceiling. His mind was mercifully blank. 

Then everything crashed back in – the Beast Rebellion, Natalie and Jean-Michel, Chloe’s betrayal. His reaction. Her attempted suicide. His conclusions about his father’s research.

“Chloe!” He sat bolt upright. He was in the Infirmary, in the bed beside hers. The wolves were gone. It seemed as if the attack was over. 

“I am here.” Her voice was weak, raspy.

Jackson stumbled out of bed. He felt weak. His legs were unsteady and his head was pounding, but _Chloe was alive._

He sank heavily onto her bed. She was wearing a blue hospital gown and her hair was down. There were great, dark circles under her eyes like bruises. A nurse hovered on the far side of the room, out of earshot but within sight.

_Of course,_ he thought. _They’ve got her on suicide watch._

Jackson took her narrow, delicate hands in his, then kissed them.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

She turned her face to his but said nothing. Tears tracked their way down her cheeks, dripping on the sheet. 

“Hey, hey, it’s OK.” He tried to put his arms around her. She shied away like a frightened fawn. 

“I don’t deserve pity, Jackson.” Her voice trembled. “What I have done to you is unforgivable –”

“But I forgive you. I get it, I really do. You were pissed at your sister, Jean-Michel was holding out an olive branch… is that how it went down?”

Her big brown eyes swam with moisture. “How do you know me so well? How do you understand me, when I do not even understand myself sometimes?”

“Because I love you, Chloe. I love you and I forgive you. And…” He fumbled in his pocket, pulled out the small velvet-lined box. He opened the lid to reveal a diamond ring. “…and I want to marry you.”


	10. Evolution of Mankind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovering from the animal invasion – but unable to recover from Chloe’s refusal – Jackson throws himself into his father’s research. He persuades Mitch to work with him on a secret project, his father’s end-game – mixing human stem cells with the mother cell to make human beings evolve, with Jackson himself as the first test subject.  
> Kazuko reveals her true colours.  
> Jackson tries one last time to patch things up with Chloe, before taking a step that will change things forever.

Jamie awoke.

“Hey, sleepyhead.” She recognised Mitch’s voice, turned her head to see him. He was slumped in a chair beside the bed. “Who’d have thought _you’d_ pass out from the tranq gas and not me?”

“What?” She passed a hand over her eyes and into her hair, trying to piece together what had happened. Her memories were fragmentary. “Your leg!” she gasped, trying to sit up. Pain rippled through her head, then her ankle. She winced. She could feel the pressure from a bandage.

“Easy there,” Mitch smirked. “You’re gonna be woozy for a while yet. And my leg… well, about the best I can say is that it’s still there.”

She leaned sideways and peeked over the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle her aching brain. From toes to knee, Mitch’s leg was in a white cast. 

“Wolf bite, not-so-lucky number three,” he told her. “Crushed fibula, fractured tibia. Guess I’ll have to give up my secret job as a motorcycle stuntman.”

“Ouch,” she murmured. “And what do you mean, you didn’t pass out?”

“The animals got one over on us, yet again.” His humour faded. “They’re smart. Too smart. They cut the power and trampled the gates, can you believe that?”

Jamie remembered the way the rats at the hotel on that island off Massachusetts had kept the power out. “Oh yeah,” she said. “I can believe that.”

“They’re into guerrilla warfare now. None of the weapons worked.”

“So long as we’re not attacked by actual gorillas.”

Mitch smiled. “Amelia let off their backup weapon, an untested gas the Army cooked up in some lab. Worked real well on the animals… and a couple of people.”

“It just knocked them out?” Jamie felt anxiety trickle through her. 

“It knocked out all the animals.” Mitch was solemn. “Amelia’s had them trucked out and dumped somewhere. They’re just gonna have a sore head in the morning.” He scrubbed a hand over his chin. “Couple people died. Went to sleep, never woke up.”

“Oh my God. Are the others OK? Chloe? Jackson?”

“‘OK’” is kind of a… sliding scale right now.”

A door at the end of the room slammed open. Jackson – looking badly in need of a shave – stormed through. He didn’t look at either of them, but left through the main Infirmary doors.

“What the hell was that?” Jamie demanded.

“The sliding scale.”

*****

Mitch had brought her fresh clothes. She dressed, with his help, then left him to totter into the next room. Her head was clearer but her limbs still felt like jelly. Given that her ankle was only in a bandage and not a cast, she figured she’d only suffered a sprain. 

“Chloe?” she said, sinking gratefully into the chair beside the French woman’s bed. Chloe was curled into a foetal position, turned away from her. A nurse hovered in the background, discreet.

“Please go away.” Her voice was rough. Jamie could tell she’d been crying.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“No. I want only to die.”

Tears pricked Jamie’s eyes. She swiped them away, glad that Chloe couldn’t see.

“That doesn’t sound like the tough Secret Service chick _I_ know,” she said. “Look, we’ve been through some crazy times together. You can tell me anything.”

“I have done terrible things.”

“Bet you didn’t shoot an FBI agent, though.”

That startled a laugh out of Chloe. She turned over and sat up. Jamie almost flinched – her friend looked awful.

“What happened?” Jamie asked.

“I slept with my ex-fiancé. Jackson and Natalie found out. Nat left the base, Jean-Michel followed, and they were killed by wild animals.”

“Oh my God,” Jamie breathed, covering her mouth.

“I tried to commit suicide but as you can see,” Chloe gestured bitterly toward herself, “I failed at that, too. When I regained consciousness I found that Jackson had protected me through the attack. He asked me to marry him.” Tears, barely restrained, dripped onto the sheet. 

“From the way Jackson just left, I’m guessing you didn’t say ‘yes’.”

“He said that he _forgave_ me, Jamie! How could he forgive me?” She said a word in French. “I cannot forgive _myself_. I cannot marry him.”

“What are you, nuts? You love him, right?”

“Yes.” Chloe wiped a hand over her damp, strained face.

“And he must love you, or he wouldn’t have asked you to marry him.”

“Yes.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Jamie raised her hands. “Take the ring already!”

“If only it was that simple –”

“It _is_ that simple! You have a heart-to-heart, you spill all your deepest darkest secrets, and you have great make-up sex!”

Chloe regarded her with curiosity, despite her obvious misery. “What did you and Mitch get up to during the attack?”

Jamie smiled. “Never mind us. Go get married.”

“Oh, Jamie, your enthusiasm and zest for life have lightened my heart. But the fact remains – for the faith I have betrayed, I cannot forgive myself.”

*****

That marked the end of what the media called the Beast Resurgence. The journalists wrote vicious opinion pieces attacking everyone involved in the ‘vaccine’, especially Jackson and his team. 

That lasted about a week, until the newspapers stopped printing. And the TV channels stopped broadcasting. 

That was the day before Christmas. No one felt much like celebrating.

“Mitch, man, I need to talk to you,” Jackson said a few weeks after Christmas. He’d found the veterinary pathologist in the VIP lounge, sipping whisky with Jamie. Mitch thought Jackson looked awful – his stubble was now a beard, and his eyes were bloodshot.

“Sure. What do you need?”

“Uh, it’s kind of private…”

“I can take a hint,” Jamie said, uncoiling herself from her seat. “Catch you later.” She dropped a kiss on the top of Mitch’s head as she left. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Jackson said as he dropped into the chair Jamie had just vacated. “You’re pretty much the only person I can trust with this.”

“Whoah, hold on there,” Mitch said, taking a sip of whisky. “If _I’m_ the only guy you can come to with this, what you’re thinking is either really stupid, or really desperate. Or both.”

Jackson rubbed the back of his neck. “Wow, you really know how to make people feel welcome.”

“Have you talked to Amelia Sage? Any of the other scientists?”

“I already know what they’re gonna say.” 

“And you think I’m going to give you a different answer because…?”

“Because you found the vaccine, the cure.”

“It wasn’t a cure, Jackson. It was the illusion of a cure.”

“It was more than that! It was a stepping stone to what we really need.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Listen, I always thought Evan Lee Hartley held the key,” Jackson explained, leaning forward, “and that the lock was somewhere in my father’s research. I finally found that lock.”

“You’re still not making any sense.”

“Look at this.” Jackson reached into the back pocket of his jeans and withdrew a square of paper, much folded. Mitch took it, unfolded it, and read it.

“‘By the defiant pupil shall we know them,’” he read aloud. “‘ELH has shown me the way, has shown me what is possible. I never wanted to take our research that far but he was right to insist. Only through evolution can we achieve true unity.’ Jackson, this sounds like a religious quote. Or something equally nuts.” 

“It does sound a bit out there,” Jackson admitted. “But think about it. Hartley was able to control those wolves. Telepathy, pheromones, body language – maybe all those things rolled into one. My father was trying to end human warfare by making us all _connected._ Empathetic.”

“But the question is, how?”

“The same way you made the cure, I guess. When Hartley went into the optometrist’s, do you remember all the equipment that was left out?”

“God, don’t. That needle. Still gives me nightmares.”

“You’re a vet, Mitch.” 

“Hey, it was a _big_ needle.” 

Jackson chuckled. “I think Hartley extracted his _own_ stem cells, mixed them with the mother cell, and then reinjected. I think that’s the way he enhanced himself in the first place, and also the way he tried to cure himself. ”

Mitch sucked air through his teeth. “That’s a pretty big leap of logic.”

“But it feels right. Will you help me?”

“Look, science doesn’t work just because you think it feels right! Listen to yourself! When was the last time you got any sleep?”

“That’s got nothing to do with this!” Jackson’s nostrils flared. “I’ve been thinking about this for weeks!”

“Well gosh, so long as you didn’t forget to eat and sleep. And, you know, try to patch things up with Chloe.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“We’re supposed to be a team. That means you share with the rest of the class.”

“Right, just like you shared when you wanted to give the mother cell to Reiden Global.”

“To save my daughter!”

“If this works, it’s gonna save the _world!”_

_“If,_ Jackson!”

“You know more about this than any of those scientists.” Jackson waved a hand toward the door. “You’ve been on it since the beginning. You can make this happen.”

Mitch studied his hands. “Give me some time to think about this.”

*****

“Rafiki!”

Jackson and Abe, meeting in the mess hall, exchanged a hard hug. 

“I feel as if I have not seen you for days,” Abe said, patting his back. “What have you been doing? You look terrible! I am sorry you and Chloe…”

“Good to see you too, buddy.” Jackson clapped Abe on the arm. “Where’s Kazuko?” he deflected.

Abe’s face fell. “We are… we are ‘taking a break’, was how I believe she put it.”

“Taking a break? That’s harsh, man. Why?”

“I did not realise she was a career soldier when we first began dating.” They sat at a vacant table. “She told me that a relationship with me would ‘damage her prospects’, considering our failures.”

Jackson slumped in his chair, running his hands through his hair. “My fault.”

_“Not_ your fault!” Abe was adamant. “We are dealing with untried, untested science here, Jackson. None of the scientists have done any better. You and Mitch, you have made intuitive leaps with the information we have that could not be matched.”

Jackson regarded him with narrow, shuttered eyes. “If I told you I had an idea that might save the world, but that Amelia and her team wouldn’t accept, what would you say to me?”

“I would say follow your heart, Rafiki. Be the man you were meant to be.”

*****

Mitch lay in bed, arms laced behind his bed. Jamie snuggled up against him.

“So what was that conversation with Jackson all about?” she asked, half-dozing.

“Hmm, what part of ‘kind of private’ didn’t make sense to you?”

“I thought we weren’t keeping secrets anymore.”

“This isn’t my secret to keep, Jamie.”

She opened her eyes, gave him a shrewd look. “Jackson’s asked you to do something, hasn’t he? Probably something stupid, or dangerous. Something he couldn’t ask the other scientists to do.”

“You didn’t hear it from _my_ mouth.”

“Something that involves his father’s notes. He’s been holed up in the Research Room for days. Chloe’s slowly going mad, did you know that?”

“Hey, she’s got issues, just like the rest of us. She needs to work ‘em out.”

“Right, because it’s so easy to move on after what she did. They took her off suicide watch a couple weeks ago, but she still has sessions with a therapist.”

“Listen, all we can do is be there for her. She needs you, not me, or Abe, she needs a woman friend. But none of us can make her forgive herself.”

“She needs Jackson to get his head out of those boxes and go talk to her again!”

“Life was simpler before the Beast Rebellion,” he sighed. 

Jamie smacked his shoulder. “Talk to Jackson. _He’s_ the only one who can get her over this. Not some stupid therapist.”

“I’d have thought he would be the last person.”

“He needs to tell her he forgives her.”

“He already tried that. Didn’t work.”

“Every day,” Jamie added. “All day. Wherever she goes, he should follow.”

“What, and trail her around like a puppy dog?”

“He’s in love with her, Mitch!” Jamie was getting frustrated. “He asked her to marry him! She loves him too, I _know_ she does, and they’d make such a goddamned beautiful couple!”

“Slow down there, sport. Think you’re taking this a bit too personally.”

“Call me ‘sport’ again and I’ll break your nose.”

Mitch grinned. “Guess I’m due to break something else, since the leg’s healed up.” He gathered Jamie more closely against his side. “I’ll talk to him… sport.”

Jamie squealed and covered his face with kisses. Mitch, laughing, let her.

*****

“I’ll do it,” Mitch said the next morning.

He’d spotted Jackson in the mess hall, eating alone. Chloe sat with Jamie. Abe hadn’t surfaced yet.

“You will?”

“Yeah. But it’s gonna be hard. I’m allowed access to the mother cell, but everything has to be approved and logged out.”

“You can’t… I don’t know… just steal some?”

Mitch looked at him, deadpan. “We’re in the middle of a military base.”

“Can’t you hack a way through the security?”

“That’s Jamie’s bat, not mine. And since you told me this was a private issue…”

“Right… right.” Jackson rubbed the side of his face, thinking. “What if you submitted a request to, I don’t know, review the vaccine?”

“They won’t give me access just to review.”

“Tell them… maybe the efficiency of the vaccine is dependent on the freshness of the mother cell?”

“It’s a mineral, Mitch. It’s not getting any fresher.”

“Work with me here!”

“Alright, alright… I’ll think of something. So, uh… you and Chloe. How are things going with that?”

“Don’t go there, man.”

“Ah, come on… I promised Jamie I’d try. She’s worried about you kids.”

“Chloe hates herself.” Jackson turned his pain-filled gaze on his friend. “She can’t – won’t – forgive herself.”

“Have you tried talking to her again?” 

“What, you’re giving me relationship advice now?”

“The Mitch Morgan Recovery Plan, go figure.” He held up his hands, palm out. “Jamie seems to think you should keep telling Chloe you forgive her, until she’s able to forgive herself.”

“Yeah?” Jackson jumped up, shoving his chair back. “Well maybe Jamie should just keep her damned nose out of other people’s business.” He stormed off.

Mitch met Jamie’s eyes across the hall. He shrugged. 

*****

“You’ve done very little research since you’ve been here, Mr. Morgan,” Amelia Sage said. “Forgive me if I seem surprised.”

“You’re not a scientist, are you?” Mitch removed his glasses, cleaning them on the hem of his shirt. 

“I’m a politician. We perform our own brand of science.”

“Well, here’s the thing. ‘Real’ science – that’s the stuff you can actually touch, you know, rather than just thinking up new ways to manipulate people – doesn’t happen like magic. It requires thought, preparation, research.”

“And that’s what you’ve been doing?” If she was annoyed at his sarcasm, she kept it under wraps. 

“Robert Oz’s notes are extensive but disorganised. They ramble. He was a brilliant scientist, but administration? Not so much.”

“Alright.” Amelia regarded him with shrewd, hawk-like eyes. Mitch hoped he’d been just rude enough to deflect her interest. “What’s your angle?” 

“To make our vaccine, we mixed the mother cell with stem cells from the leopard cub, an animal that had already begun the evolution process without Reiden’s influence. I want to see the effects of the mother cell on other types of organic matter. Tissue, blood, bone.”

“To what end? It was the interaction between animals and the mother cell that put us in this predicament. And we don’t have an inexhaustible supply, Mitch.”

“Has anyone worked this side of the research yet?” He’d come prepared. “Has anyone studied this in detail? It’s real short-sighted to discount something just because we think it won’t have an effect. Truth is, we don’t know enough about the mother cell to know what it’ll do. And really, who thought up such a stupid name for a _mineral?”_

“Blame that one on our old friends at Reiden.” Amelia’s smile was thin, though amused. “Your proposal is approved. Don’t make me regret it.”

*****

“How, uh, how is this gonna work?” Jackson asked, nervous. Mitch had his own lab – small, granted, but it was all his – and all the equipment he’d requested. Jackson sat on a workbench. 

“I need to take some of your stem cells. Now, this is the part you’re gonna hate.”

“Hit me, doc.”

“Washed out of med school, Jackson.”

“Not making me feel better…”

“Hey, you wanted me in on this. So this is how it’s gonna happen. For your theory that Evan Lee Hartley was communicating with the wolves on a telepathic level, I would need stem cells from the nervous system. That theory’s supported by the fact that Hartley went in through his eye to get stem cells – I think he took them from the optic nerve.”

Jackson winced. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”

“Look, I can carry on doing the research I told Amelia I was going to do. Or I can do what you asked. Your choice.”

Jackson’s face hardened. “I’m right about this. I know I’m right. Hartley was right. Do it, Mitch.”

*****

Jackson watched as Mitch prepared the equipment, a long, sharp needle that already had him in a cold sweat. But he let his friend fix him into the head restraint. 

“Local anaesthetic,” Mitch said apologetically, waving a small bottle at him. “Sorry. Little stronger than what Hartley had, but it’s all I can give you.”

“I understand.”

“Last chance to back out. I don’t – this is gonna hurt.”

“Just do it!”

“Alright, alright…” Mitch picked up the needle. “Just, you know, if you’re gonna cry like a little girl, give me some warning first.”

*****

Five minutes later it was over. Jackson sat and trembled, working through the pain, a bandage over his eye.

“This is going to take some time,” Mitch said, peering into a microscope as he manipulated Jackson’s stem cell sample. “Why don’t you go and rest? Who knows, maybe you could patch things up with Chloe. Stranger things have happened.”

“Chloe,” Jackson murmured. He was sweating, and his uncovered eye had taken on a fixed look. “You’re right. I should totally do that.”

*****

Jackson found Chloe in the gym. She’d recovered from her suicide attempt with no lasting ill effects, though it was clear to his eyes – to his _eye_ – that she’d lost weight. She looked gaunt, hollow, though perhaps even more beautiful because of it. She appeared fragile… right up until he saw her spin-kicking the boxing target. 

“Hey.” He approached her with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. 

“What happened to you?” 

He searched her face. It was shut down tight. “I – uh – walked into a door.”

“I don’t need any special training to know that _that_ is a lie. What do you want?”

“You to marry me.”

“I told you. I cannot.” She kicked the weight again.

“Can’t, or won’t? They’re not the same thing, Chloe.”

“If the end result is the same, what does it matter?”

“It matters because I love you! And I know you love me!”

“I cannot change what has happened.” Another kick, followed by a punch that almost ripped the weight from its moorings. Sweat flew from her face and body. “But I can punish myself for it.”

“Damnit, I forgive you! I forgive you! Please!”

“I do not forgive myself. That is all there is to it.”

“Then you don’t care what happens to me?”

“I did not say that.” She gave him a sharp look. “I care very much what happens to you.”

“I found a cure.”

“We already had a cure. It did not work.” She stopped kicking the weight and turned to face him, hands on hips. 

“This one will work.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because it worked for Evan Lee Hartley.”

_“Mon dieu…_ you are going to inject the mother cell…?” Sudden panic crossed her face, the first emotion she’d shown, as she realised his plan. “Your eye… _no,_ Jackson! Tell me you are not going to do this!”

“I have to. I have to try. For humanity. For us. Even if there _is_ no us.”

“No, Jackson, no…” Tears made her eyes glisten. Her lips trembled and she reached for him, but stopped the movement. “It killed Hartley. I cannot let it kill you.”

“It’s not like I’ve got anything left to live for, is it?” he shot back. He threw his hands up in an ‘I’m done’ gesture, then turned to walk toward the door. 

“You once told me you’d do anything for me!” Chloe shot after him. “Before we left for Paris, before… before.” Her tears fell freely now. “Don’t do this. Stay with me!”

“I only want one thing from you, Chloe.” He’d reached the door, opened it. “I want you to forgive yourself.”

“I… I cannot…” 

He opened the door and stepped through. Chloe rushed toward him, but before she could reach him he’d slammed and locked the door. 

“Jackson!” she hammered against the metal, fists raining down. “Jackson!”

*****

“You talk to Chloe?” Mitch asked when Jackson came back to his lab.

“We talked.”

“And?”

“And it’s none of your business, Mitch.”

“Well, at least I can tell Jamie I tried. If she ever forgives me for doing this, that is.”

“She’ll forgive you. She’s crazy about you.”

“Like Chloe is for you?”

“Shut up and shoot me up already.”

The blaring alarm made them both freeze. “Those animals don’t give up, do they?” Mitch said. 

“More likely Chloe got out of a locked gym and ratted me out.”

Mitch winced. “You really have a way with women.” He picked up the needle, full this time with golden liquid. “Let’s get this over with.”

*****

Chloe banged on the locked laboratory door. She had a contingent of half a dozen armed soldiers at her back.

“Mitchell Morgan! Jackson! Open this door!” she yelled, banging again. “Break it down,” she ordered, and moved back.

Two soldiers stepped forward, carrying a heavy battering ram between them. Moving in tandem they set up a rhythmic pounding against the door.

A terrible scream ripped through the air. A man’s scream.

_“Jackson!_ For the love of God, open this door!”

The lock mechanism shrieked. The soldiers hit the door again and it burst open. Chloe rushed through, then froze at the terrible tableau before her. 

Mitch was on the floor, his face bloody. Jackson crouched over him. The bandage over his eye was gone. He looked… feral. There was no other word for it. 

She stepped toward him and he snarled. A sob caught in her throat.

“What have you done to yourself?” she whispered. 

A bullet zinged off the wall inches away from Jackson. He leapt away, his reflexes faster than she’d ever known. 

“Don’t shoot him!”

There was a window in the lab – high up and reinforced with wire mesh. Jackson grabbed a stainless steel chair and hurled it at the window. 

The window smashed.

He leapt on the workbench and lunged for the newly made exit. The glass cut his fingers where he gripped the sill, but if he felt any pain he didn’t show it. The soldiers pushed past Chloe and made a grab for him. He wriggled away with unusual grace and dived through the window.

He landed on the other side, rolling neatly to his feet. He struck out immediately for the fence. Several signs – in big black, red and yellow lettering – warned that it was electrified, but he paid it no attention.

Sparks exploded from the fence as he approached it; the power was down. He shot up like a monkey. Sporadic gunfire followed him, but he ignored it and kept on climbing. He flipped over the top and leapt to the bottom, landing light and firm. 

He ran.

*****

Jackson wandered through a forested area. His eyes burned in his face. He looked terrible – rough, unkempt, as if he’d been sleeping rough for days… or just barely sleeping. 

As he entered a clearing he spotted a lone wolf, a lean animal with creamy white fur and intelligent black eyes. She sat on her haunches and watched him.

Jackson approached, slow and steady. The wolf’s tail pounded the ground as it wagged. She got to her feet and trotted across to him, then ducked her head and licked his outstretched fingers. Then she sat at his feet.

A second wolf entered the clearing, licked his fingers, and sat. Then a third. A fourth. More. They entered from all directions until Jackson was completely surrounded.

He threw his head back and howled. His pack added their voices to his.


	11. Things That Cannot Be Recovered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson, with heightened abilities caused by Mitch’s ‘treatment’, escapes from the base. Chloe leads the rest of the team through the wilderness to recover him; after a tense encounter he escapes, but she’s able to plant a tracker on his clothes.

Mitch reeled from the blow to the face and stumbled back in the jail cell.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Chloe shouted.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh, maybe we can save the world’,” Mitch said, rubbing his jaw.

“What have you _done_ to him?”

“Nothing that he didn’t ask me to do! It was his idea and he volunteered for the first trial!”

Amelia Sage strode into the jail block, a look of thunder on her face.

“Mr. Morgan, if you had approached us with this project we could have helped you. Now we have a potential disaster on our hands, running around in the wild, completely unmonitored.”

“Oh, please.” Mitch was dismissive. “Jackson came to me specifically because he knew you’d turn him down!”

“If he dies because of what you have done,” Chloe hissed, jabbing him in the chest, “I will kill you!”

*****

Mitch had plenty of time to reflect on what he’d done. After Jackson had gone nuts and escaped, the soldiers had thrown him straight in a cell. 

He’d had his doubts, when Jackson first approached him. But the more he’d thought about it, the more he knew he’d done the right thing.

He stopped pacing when they let Jamie in to see him.

“I thought you weren’t gonna come –” 

She slapped him.

“You bastard. I thought we weren’t going to have any more secrets between us, and then you go and do this?”

“I told you.” Wow, his face was really getting a workout today. “It wasn’t my secret to tell.”

“Don’t give me that crap! Jackson asked _you_ to do something. That makes it _your_ damned secret!” 

Then, to his surprise, she burst into tears.

Mitch tried to put his arms around her, but she slapped them away. He tried again and again until she finally let him hold her. She buried her face against his chest and sobbed.

“I didn’t want you to get caught up in all this,” he murmured into her hair. “Plausible deniability, right? Otherwise they’d lock you up, too.”

Jamie sniffled and pulled away. “They’re looking for him. He got away and they’re looking for him.”

“I don’t know if I hope they find him or not.”

“What did you think would happen after you injected him?”

“Honestly? Not this. He’s stronger, faster… Jamie, the changes affected him immediately. If he can jump and climb like a monkey after a few seconds, what can he do after a few hours? A few days?”

“We’ll get him back before then,” she said. “We have to. We’ll… we’ll find out what’s wrong with him, and then we’ll fix him.”

“There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s evolved.”

Jamie stepped back from him, a sad look on her face.

“Right. Evan Lee Hartley was _evolved,_ and he ran me off the road. What’s Jackson gonna do?”

*****

Two armed soldiers brought Mitch – in handcuffs – to a conference room. Abe, Jamie and Chloe were already waiting for him, as was Amelia Sage.

“Are the cuffs really necessary?” Mitch said. “Come on, I’m not about to go all Tarzan on you.”

“I find your attempt at humour distasteful,” Chloe said, glaring at him. 

“Would have got a laugh out of Jackson.”

“I am thirty seconds away from punching you!”

“Again? I’m touched.”

Chloe exploded from her seat. Abe’s arms closed around her, clamping like a vice. He’d moved so swiftly he must have anticipated her reaction.

“The reason you’re here,” Amelia said, severe, “is because, frankly, we have no idea where Jackson Oz has gone. Conditions beyond the base are dangerous to say the least. We’ve lost contact with other bases. CCTV around the state – around the country – is inaccessible.”

“So we’re blind,” Mitch said.

“In effect, yes. Jackson is still a valuable resource to us, but I have limited manpower to go after him. I need to know that I’m looking in the right place.”

“And you think I can give you that insight?”

“I think all of you can give me that insight. You are the people who know him best, save for his mother, and we can’t contact her right now. So I ask you – where would he go?”

“Depends what he’s thinking,” Mitch ruminated. “When Even Lee Hartley escaped prison, the only thought on his mind was getting hold of the mother cell and making a cure.”

“Robert Oz’s research suggest that, like Jackson, Hartley asked to be injected with… what are we calling it?” Chloe asked. She appeared to have her anger under control, though her eyes still snapped with energy.

They all looked at Mitch. He held his hands up. They clinked.

“It’s… a treatment, I guess.”

“A treatment, then. Who’s to say that Jackson won’t try to reverse the process?”

“No.” Mitch shook his head. “He’d need more mother cell to do that, and we’re the closest supplier. He’d need to come back here. Abe, you know him best – where would he go?”

“We have been studying the Beast Rebellion for many months now,” Abe said, thinking aloud. “During that time none of us have had a place we can call home. Moving from hotel to hotel, and then staying at Wilson Air Force Base and Fort McNair.” The others nodded, following his train of thought. “I think he will be looking for his home. His childhood home.”

“You’re sure about that?” Amelia asked.

“As sure as anyone can be.”

“Right. I have a team standing by. Abe, you’re on it, if you want to be.”

“And me,” Chloe added. Amelia nodded.

“Ah, hell,” Jamie said. “If it was one of us, he’d come get us.”

“And what about you, Mr. Morgan?” Amelia asked. “What would you do?”

“He will stay as far away from this as possible!” Chloe spat.

“Whether or not he’s in tune with nature now, we need to monitor him,” Mitch said. “We need to study him, I guess.”

Amelia nodded to one of the soldiers. The man stepped forward and unlocked his cuffs. He rubbed his wrists.

“Gear up,” Amelia said. “You leave in ten minutes.”

*****

‘Gearing up’ meant dressing in army combats and bullet-proof vests. Chloe and Abe were issued with firearms. Jamie – after her encounter with Ben Schaffer – didn’t want one. 

“Don’t I get a gun?” Mitch asked. “I feel I should have a gun. Pointy end faces out, right?”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pound your face into the ground,” Chloe snarled. 

“Oh, get off your high horse,” Mitch snapped. “Jackson wanted to do this. And besides, if you’d gotten over yourself long enough to say ‘yes’ when he asked you to marry him, he might not have come up with the idea in the first place!”

“You go too far!” she growled. “You talk of things you have no understanding of! And you should shut your mouth before I shut it for you!”

“Hey, back off, Chloe.” Jamie stepped in between them. “We all have to do what we think is right. Just like you let your sister be tortured because you didn’t want to give up our location.”

Chloe looked as if she’d been slapped. All her defiant energy seeped away, and when she looked up, she seemed tired and faded.

“I am… I apologise, Mitch. Jamie is right.”

Mitch just shrugged. “You’re in love with the guy. I understand.” He glanced at Jamie. Her small smile told him he wasn’t entirely forgiven.

“You might want to save your soap opera for the drive,” Abe said, walking past them to climb into the Jeep.

*****

They hit a main road out of D.C then switched to the back roads.

“I think Jackson will be on foot,” Abe said. “He will be travelling out of sight, through the forests.”

“Well,” Jamie said, studying a map as their driver pulled into a rutted, gravelled car park, “if you’re right, he’ll be travelling through _this_ forest.”

They got out of the Jeep. Other vehicles pulled up behind them, spilling more soldiers. 

A wolf’s howl rose into the cold afternoon air. 

“Twenty bucks says Jackson made a friend,” Mitch said.

Chloe walked past him, tucking a tranquiliser handgun into the back of her belt. “That is not a bet I am willing to make.”

“Hey.” Mitch grabbed her arm, pressed something into her palm. “I’d lay another twenty that says you get to him first. You might want to use this in case… well, you’ll know.”

Chloe stared at the tiny thing in her hand, then slipped it into her pocket.

“Let’s move out!”

*****

“OK, so I hate nature,” Jamie said a few hours later. She was with Mitch and four soldiers. “I am not an outdoors girl!”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Mitch trekked along behind her. All he had to remember his broken leg was a scar and a slight limp. “Remember Africa? You took the tranq gun with you when you went to pee? Sounds like you got nature _all_ under control.”

In front of them, they heard what sounded like several soldiers trying not to snigger.

“I remember you volunteered to hold the gun. While I peed.” Jamie was unabashed, and the sniggers grew a little louder. “But that was right before Ray Endicott got attacked and killed by leopards.”

The sniggers stopped. 

“What are we doing out here, Mitch?” Jamie demanded, slapping a wet branch out of her face. “Jackson could be anywhere. We’re not outdoors folk!”

“We’re looking for our friend.” His tone implied he was talking to a very simple person. “He _is_ outdoors folk. Therefore…”

A low snarl rumbled from somewhere ahead of them. The soldiers immediately went on guard, training their guns toward the sound. 

“Don’t shoot them!” Mitch said. “If Jackson’s controlling them, we’ll never get him to come back!”

“Relax, sir,” one of the soldiers called back. “We’re using tranqs. We’re OK so long as we don’t run into any bears.”

“And we’ve got gas for bears,” another soldier added. 

“That makes me feel so much more relaxed,” Mitch muttered. 

Three wolves trotted out in front of them. Two more approached on either side. 

“However he’s doing it, I’d say Jackson’s sending us a pretty clear message,” Jamie said, looking warily left and right. She’d moved closer to Mitch. “No wolves behind us. ‘Turn back… while you still can.’”

“Friends don’t let friends drive wolves,” Mitch muttered. He took a single step forward. 

The wolves – as one – barked.

“Alright! Point taken!”

*****

Abe and Chloe had taken another trail through the forest, but this time Abe was leading, not the soldiers. He felt comfortable being back in a natural environment, even if there were animals out here who wanted to kill him just for being human. He hadn’t realise until he’d left Fort McNair just how much the lack of fresh air – the lack of sunlight, the feel of the wind on his face – was messing with his equilibrium. 

“It is good to be back outside,” Abe said as they marched along. Even though he set a fast pace, he was still keeping a sharp eye for any human-sized tracks. “I do not like to be cooped up indoors.”

“I agree. It is nice to be among the trees. And I will continue to think that right up to the point where something tries to kill us.”

Abe laughed. “I am pleased to see you have not lost your sense of humour, given everything that has happened between you and Jackson.”

She shot him a sideways look. “I thought you weren’t interested in the soap opera?”

“Forgive me. I spoke out of turn. I have let things with Kazuko get under my skin.”

“I am sorry – I had heard you were no longer together.”

“Better that it ended now, before things had become more serious.”

“Sounds as if they were plenty serious, Abe.”

The big man shrugged. “At least now I know the kind of woman she is. But I am sad. I met her parents, and I liked them.”

Chloe hugged him briefly around the shoulders. She had to stand on tip-toe to do it. “Welcome to the wonderful world of dating.”

“Hold on.” He stopped. “Look at that!”

She came to a halt, her eyes following Abe’s pointing finger. Behind them, the soldiers also stopped, checking their surroundings with practiced wariness. 

“Tracks,” Chloe said. “Human footprints.”

“In Jackson’s size. And look,” he bent to run his fingers over the trampled soil, “wolf prints. I count many animals.”

“Do you think Mitch’s treatment worked?”

Abe spent another minute studying the tracks. “Oh yes. He is walking in a straight line, not running. His gait is even. And the wolves…”

“Yes?”

“He is walking in the middle of them.”

*****

Abe’s discovery lent them fresh energy, and they stepped up their pace. 

“How old are these tracks?” Chloe asked.

“The first ones I discovered were only hours old.” He knelt to study the prints. “These, perhaps minutes. We are so close!”

“We will find him,” Chloe said. Her eyes gleamed with a fierce light. “We will find your friend and bring him home.”

“He _is_ my friend,” Abe acknowledged, “but he is also your beloved, is he not?”

“It is a little more complicated than that –”

“No. It is never complicated. Love is a very simple thing, Chloe, something we may never find in our lives. If you are lucky enough to find it, you should hold on to it.”

“But what of the cost?”

“No cost is too high.”

They continued in silence for several more minutes. They burst into a clearing – just in time to see Jackson leave it. 

“Jackson!” Chloe yelled. She took off like a hare, sprinting across the space between them. Abe and the soldiers followed. Abe’s foot caught on a tree root; he went down hard, catching his head against the base of a tree. He was out cold. The soldiers pounded after Chloe, though two remained behind to see to Abe.

Jackson ran through the forest, as fleet and lithe as any of the wolves behind him. Chloe kept him in sight, ducking the wet branches that would have knocked her over, somehow managing to keep her feet as she leapt over roots and dips. She even left the soldiers behind.

“Jackson, please stop!”

“Stop following me, Chloe!”

“I cannot let you do this!”

The wolves – perhaps at some silent command – peeled away and wheeled back around, quickly encircling the following soldiers. Their forward charge was brought to an immediate halt. They didn’t shoot – the wolves weren’t attacking – but unless they took action, or Jackson called them off, they were trapped.

Chloe plunged on through the thick brush. She came to an abrupt halt when she realised that Jackson had stopped at the edge of deep gulley. Above the sound of her own harsh pants for breath she could hear the trickle of a stream. She slipped her hand into her jacket pocket and withdrew the small item Mitch had given her.

“Jackson…”

He faced the edge, hands on his hips. When he turned to look at her she flinched. His eyes held an energy she’d never seen before. The one Mitch had injected was bloodshot, but the other sparked with deep intelligence. The rest of him was dirty and unkempt, his hair and beard a mess, but it was his face she honed in on. She was unable to stop the instant wave of longing that rushed through her.

“Go home, Chloe.”

“Only if you come with me.” She began walking forward, her pace slow and measured.

“Stop right there.” 

He looked over his shoulder and eyed the gulley. If he jumped he’d hurt himself. Not badly – maybe nothing more than a sprained ankle – but maybe, just maybe, worse. 

“What do you hope to achieve by running?” she asked. She kept coming forward, but her footsteps were smaller this time.

“Time,” he replied immediately. “All I need is time. Time to work out what I can do, what I can be.”

“What… what have you become?” Her voice was raspy. 

_“Become_ is the right word. I have become… myself. What the human race was always meant to be. Connected, Chloe, do you understand that? Everything’s connected. When you get right down to it, we’re all animals.”

“We are _humans,”_ she insisted. She’d closed the space between them to five or six feet, and was working on that final gap. “We’ve risen above our base instincts. We embrace higher thinking, more than just the struggle for survival.”

“You’ve got it all wrong. Life is nothing more than the struggle for survival. You haven’t risen above your instincts, you’ve forgotten how to listen to them.” He banged a fist against his chest. “You don’t know what they feel like here.” He tapped his head. “Or here.”

“Help me understand.”

Just a few feet now. She held a hand out to him. He stared at it, then at her face.

“I want you as my mate,” he said. “I mean my wife. I still do. All you have to do is come with me.”

“Alright,” she said, nodding. “I will…” 

The hand she held out of sight, behind her back, reached for the tranquiliser gun hidden under her jacket. 

Jackson’s attention snapped to something behind her. A low growl told her that it was another wolf, perhaps one of the ones guarding the soldiers, who’d come to check on the new alpha. She cursed as she realised it would have a clear sight of her fingers closing around the handgun. 

His eyes widened as he realised – or was informed! – of her intent.

She grabbed his arm with her outstretched hand, sticking the tiny tracker Mitch had given her onto the fabric of his jacket where he wouldn’t see it. As he pulled away she whipped the tranquiliser gun out and trained it at him. Her aim was steady on his chest.

_“That_ was your plan?” he exclaimed. His voice rang with pain. “You were gonna shoot me?” He stepped away from her, closer to the edge of the gulley.

“You are sick, Jackson!”

“And you think you can make me better?”

“Let us try!”

“I’m not sick. I’m _evolved._ I’ll make you all realise that.”

He took one more step back. Enough to make him drop over the edge. Chloe raced forward as he fell out of sight.

Jackson had not only landed on his feet in the stream, but had landed without injury and was racing away. Wolves streamed toward him from further back in the forest. She steadied her hands again, sighted, and squeezed off a shot. It missed. Another shot, then another, until all the darts were expelled and Jackson was out of sight.

Chloe collapsed to her knees in the leaf litter, the gun dropped and forgotten. Her empty hands closed on a small, familiar box… the ring Jackson had bought, now abandoned in the grass. She held it close to her chest and sobbed.


	12. Devolution of Mankind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following the tracker, Jackson is hit with a tranq and brought back to the base, where he has a tracking device implanted beneath his skin. Amelia Sage’s scientists perform brutal tests and see first-hand his new telepathic link to animals. Seeing the possibilities of Mitch’s treatment, Amelia authorises the use of a modified treatment using foetal stem cells mixed with the mother cell. Kazuko volunteers to be the first test subject.  
> Jackson takes advantage of her violent reaction to steal the treatment and escape; with both ‘evolved’ people on the loose, Chloe and the rest of the team choose to follow Jackson.

Jackson ran. 

He felt as if he could run for miles, for hours, maybe even days. The ground was springy beneath his feet. He’d caught his second wind and now oxygen flowed freely through his lungs. Were they larger? He felt as if they were larger. He could feel them press against his ribs with every inhalation. 

Everything was… more. He could see more, hear more, smell more. _Think_ more. He heard the thoughts of his pack as it beside him. The wolves were losing themselves in the joy of the run and so was he.

But more than that – he could hear the thoughts of other animals. Even, at the edges of his hearing, people. Not the ones he wanted to hear – Chloe and the others – but enough to make him think that, with time and perseverance, he could stretch himself. It was wildly exhilarating.

As he ran he caught the first snatches of thought that weren’t wolf… or animal. They sounded in his head, echoing like a conversation in another room.

_…follow the signal…_

_…tell where he’s going…?_

_…no deviation…cut him off…_

Soldiers. His lip curled with disdain. They couldn’t catch him, not now. He felt as if he had eyes and ears everywhere – 

He felt a sharp sting in his neck. His hand flew up even as his feet stumbled; it took everything he had just to stay upright. His hand came away holding a tiny dart.

“How…?”

Dizziness swept through him. This wasn’t possible. He tried to run again, putting one foot mechanically in front of another, but they wouldn’t obey him. Why hadn’t the wolves warned him? They milled around him now, confused, licking at his face and hands. 

_Hunt-blind,_ he thought, remembering how he’d felt just a few minutes ago. _Caught up in the thrill of the run, knowing you can go on and on and never thinking something can stop you –_

Grey mist swam across his vision. He dropped to his knees. He started crawling. He heard shouts behind him, excited and frightened at the same time. The wolves snarled and snapped.

“Go,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Run. Don’t come back here.” He could smell gun oil now, gun oil and camouflage paint and the rank odour of fear. “Go!”

As the world slid sideways and faded to white static, his last sight was of a line of wolves trotting away from him, tails flipped high.

*****

“You have him?” Chloe strode along the corridor behind Amelia Sage. “Tell me you have him?”

“Through here, Miss Tousignant.” The older woman gestured for Chloe to enter a room. “You’re the last to return.”

Chloe entered a small room. Jamie, Mitch and Abe were already there; to her surprise, Lieutenant Kazuko Wilson was also present. She held herself away from the others.

One whole wall was taken up by what Chloe guessed was a two-way mirror. In the room beyond she saw Jackson. Stripped down to his underpants and strapped to a table, he was straining against his bonds, muscles cording with his efforts. The leather straps looked as if they were stretched to their limit.

Gowned doctors hovered around him, trying to fix electrodes and patches to his body. His mouth was wide open. Was he yelling? She couldn’t hear. Chloe pressed her hands to the glass, feeling the smooth, cold material bite into her palms. 

“What are you going to do to him?” she demanded.

“Tests,” Amelia replied. There was no emotion in her voice, no compassion. “He agreed to undergo an untried, untested medical treatment. What did you think would happen when we got him back?”

“Is this going to hurt him?” Tension stretched Chloe’s features, making her face resemble a skull. 

“No pain, no gain.”

“I did not tag him so that you could _experiment_ on him!” Chloe spat. She watched, helpless, as one of the doctors slid a needle into his arm. Cords of muscle stood out on Jackson’s neck.

Abe turned away from the window, hands on his hips. His eyes were suspiciously damp. Beside him Jamie turned to Mitch, who put his arm around her. Kazuko Wilson merely watched Jackson with sharp eyes. 

“These aren’t experiments.” Amelia was unsympathetic. “This isn’t some episode of _The X-Files._ We have a series of tests we wish to perform.”

“He’s _restrained!”_

“For his own benefit! You want him hurting himself? Hurting the scientists?”

“I don’t want _him_ being hurt! Untie him!”

“Miss Tousignant, if you can’t control your temper, I’ll have you removed.”

“You would have _me_ removed?” Her eyes flashed. “Without me, you would not have _him!”_

“That’s it! Take her out.”

The two burly soldiers, who’d stood flanking the door, moved forward. Chloe – visibly calming – eyed them coldly.

“No! I will remain. And everything that you do to him, I will watch… and remember.”

*****

“I can’t believe we’re letting them do this,” Jamie murmured twenty minutes later. She could barely stand to watch – was hardly able, through the veil of steadily dripping tears that covered her face – but she forced herself. She owed it to Jackson.

“We don’t have a choice.” Mitch was thin-lipped with anger, his face pale. “Anyone can see he’s suffering, but we can’t stop it.”

They’d watched the doctors take sample after sample of blood. Mitch had explained what was happening, in a low, emotionless voice that trembled every now and again. Along with the blood tests they’d performed a spinal tap. Drawn fluid from the eyes. They’d taken tissue sample, tested his reflexes, his hearing. He was hooked up to so many machines he looked half-cyborg.

“I could… I don’t know… hack into their security…?”

“No, Jamie. You’re good, but they’re the _Army._ All that would happen is that they’d lock you up.” He kissed her forehead. “Can’t let that happen.”

Abe was watching proceedings, unable to look away. Tears streamed down the big man’s face. Occasionally he wiped a hand across his cheeks. But he didn’t look away.

“I am sorry, Rafiki,” he murmured every now and again. “I am so sorry.”

They all looked at each other when the alarms went off. One of the soldiers at the door spoke into a walkie-talkie.

“What is happening?” Chloe demanded. “Is it another animal attack?”

“Yes, ma’am. We have reports of large mammals attacking the fence. But they won’t get through, not this time.”

Chloe looked at Jackson, writhing on the hospital gurney. 

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that. Are your power supplies protected?”

He gave her a condescending look. “We learned our lesson from the last attack, ma’am. We have our own generator on-site, plus two back-ups, and all three are heavily protected. Nothing short of an elephant is getting to those gennies.”

“Right,” Mitch said. His condescension was more than a match for the soldier’s. “Because we got chased out of D.C by rhinos. No elephants here, no sir-ee.” 

The soldier finally began to look worried. From outside, the first faint sounds of battle could be heard – snarls, hoots, roars and shrieks, and over everything the heavy crack of gunfire. 

The others drew closer to one another, all except Chloe, who was watching Jackson intently.

“I want to hear what is happening,” she demanded. She turned to the soldier. “Can we get sound in here?”

“Chloe, I don’t think –” Jamie tried, reaching for her.

The French woman shook her off, glaring at the soldier. “Get me some sound!”

The soldier spoke into his walkie-talkie again. A few seconds later they heard a hiss of static followed by a harsh crackle. Then they heard Jackson.

He wasn’t yelling, as everyone had thought. He was _screaming._

“The animals are reacting to his pain,” Chloe breathed, eyes wide with horror. “You must stop these tests, these _experiments!”_

“Ma’am, we’re not authorised to do that.” The soldier looked uneasy. 

“Then get me someone who is!”

He had a murmured conversation with someone else on his walkie-talkie. Two minutes later – two minutes that felt like a lifetime, as Jackson writhed and screamed and the animals continued their cacophony – Amelia Sage strode into the room. A white-coated doctor scurried after her.

“If this is some pathetic attempt to make the tests stop –”

“It is not,” Chloe interrupted. “Can you not hear his pain?”

“Ma’am, this is highly irregular!” the doctor said.

“Think of it as another test,” Amelia said, glancing at the doctor. “Cause and effect.” Her features hadn’t softened – not exactly – but there was a slight lessening of the severity around her eyes. Chloe began to hope that she wasn’t as heartless as she appeared.

The doctor threw his hands in the air and left. They watched as, minutes later, the tubes were removed and the invasive procedures ended. 

Jackson’s screams stopped. He slumped against his restraints, panting and sweating. 

The cacophony from outside ceased.

“I’d say that answers your question,” Chloe bit out. “Lock him up if you must, but for God’s sake untie him. He is a human being!”

*****

They watched Jackson pace restlessly from wall to wall of his holding cell. If he felt any lingering pain from the tests he didn’t show it, and the animals outside displayed no further reaction.

“Interesting. We know he has conscious control of animals,” Amelia remarked, “but now we know he has unconscious control. Somehow they felt that he was in pain, and they tried to rescue him.”

“Are they still out there?” Jamie asked.

“I have no doubt of it,” Abe answered. None of them could take their eyes off Jackson. “He is like a caged animal.”

“I hope all this testing was worth it,” Chloe ground out. Her eyes were wet with tears. “Because it will not happen again.”

Amelia gave her a pitying look before turning to Mitch.

“Well, Doctor Morgan,” she said, patting him on the arm, “seems like you’ve pulled off the impossible.”

“Not a doctor,” he grunted. “And it wasn’t my idea.”

“Regardless, what you and Jackson have achieved is… incredible.” She seemed genuinely amazed. “The possibilities for military use are endless –”

“Military use?” Abe exclaimed. “You mean, you want to turn my friend into a _weapon?”_ He didn’t bother to hide the outrage on his face.

“Him? No.” Amelia was dismissive. “He doesn’t have military training or discipline.”

“My God. Imagine what a soldier could do if they were in tune with the animals,” Abe said, shaking his head. “It would eradicate the need for spy technology, for a start. You could see through a bird’s eyes… send fleet-footed rats in through the sewers… _nowhere_ would be safe.” 

“More than that.” Amelia was smug. “Jackson’s stronger than before, we could tell that even before the test results come back. He’s faster. He has more endurance. Imagine a soldier with those kinds of abilities.”

“A super-soldier,” Abe sneered.

“You were in an army.” Her face was cold now. “You know an army will use whatever weapons it has to win a war.”

“And some wars should not be fought!” Abe shouted. 

“As far as we know, no other country has what the United States has right now.” She was cool and calm in the face of his anger. “None of them has Jackson, or his father’s research. None of them should have any mother cell left after making the vaccine. We have an edge, and by God we’re going to use it.”

“Mad. You are all mad.”

“How – how exactly are you going to do this?” Jamie asked, her journalist’s curiosity getting the better of her.

“Jamie –” Abe wheeled to face her.

“I didn’t say I agreed with it,” she said quickly. “But Amelia, are you really going to put your soldiers through the same procedure that Jackson went through? Just the thought of it makes me shudder.”

Amelia’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “All we need is human stem cells, and the mother cell, right?”

“In theory, yes –” Mitch said. She overrode him.

“We can get hold of foetal stem cells, cook up a big batch.” She looked through the glass. Jackson had stopped pacing and was watching her intently, almost as if he could read her lips. “Draw on rank and file volunteers.”

“Ma’am!” Kazuko said, stepping forward and letting off a crisp salute. Amelia wasn’t her superior, but she still held authority in Fort McNair. “Permission to get the first dose?”

*****

Jackson felt the beginnings of a plan form in his mind. More than a plan – destiny. _His_ destiny, and that of the rest of the world. 

The medical tests had left him screaming, but in rage rather than pain. They’d hurt – they’d hurt like _hell_ – but he was furious that the country he’d tried to save, the people he loved, had turned on him like this. Chloe – Abe – Jamie and Mitch. They’d just stood there and let it happen. He knew it was a two-way mirror, but he didn’t need to see them to know they were there. He smelled them. He heard their movements. 

Chloe, in particular, pulled at his senses; he heard the staccato beat of her heart, smelled the light, floral fragrance she wore. Mixed in with her own personal body odour, it made a scent he would recognise from miles away, if the wind was blowing in the right direction.

The animals outside had shared his rage. It exploded from him like fireworks, setting them alight and burning through them.

But after it was over, after the pain and anger had begun to recede, he knew that his abilities were stronger. _He_ was stronger. He couldn’t hear what Amelia was saying, not through all that glass, but he kept catching snippets of her thoughts.

_…super-soldiers…_

_…make a big batch of treatment…_

_…show the world what the US Army can do…_

There would be more of Mitch’s treatment. Lots more. He agreed with Amelia’s basic idea that more people needed to evolve. If they knew how he felt… what he saw, what he smelt, the sheer freedom that being with animals gave him… they’d all understand. They’d all be connected. And with that connection would come peace. _That_ was what his father was striving toward, that ultimate peace. 

Of course, he’d need to find a way to bring the treatment to the people. He couldn’t let it go to waste on soldiers. 

*****

Mitch, Jamie, Abe and Chloe held an emergency meeting later in a corner of the mess hall, where they wouldn’t be overheard.

“We’re not going to let them do this,” Chloe said. Her face was hard, her eyes snapping with anger. “Whatever Jackson’s motivations for undergoing the treatment, he would not want this. He is not a violent man.”

“But he can be a devious one,” Abe said, hands bunched under his chin. “Before all this started, we encountered a group of poachers. It was all legal – they had permits,” he couldn’t disguise the disgust in his voice, “but it was still wrong. When we saw that the poachers were closing in on the animals, who were unaware of their presence, Jackson set our portable radio to its full volume and turned it on.”

“That sounds like something Jackson would do,” Chloe said, though her smile was weak. 

“Excuse me for being the voice of reason,” Mitch said, “but how were you – one person – planning to stop the Army from doing what it wants?”

“Two people,” Abe said.

“Three,” Jamie added. “I’ve seen what an ‘evolved’ person can do up close and personal.” She made air quotes. “And it wasn’t pretty. Evan Lee Hartley could have killed me when he ran me off the road.”

“So what, you see one bad egg and you decide the whole thing’s a bad idea?”

“Yes!”

“Jamie, think about this.” Mitch leaned forward over the table. “Amelia is right in saying that this has possibilities. Massive possibilities, but not just for the Army – for everyone.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Think about it. If everyone was more in tune with ‘nature’,” and this time _he_ air-quoted, “we’d be less likely to cut trees down, overfish the seas and pollute the damned atmosphere.”

“Or we’d end up living like the animals,” Jamie interjected. “Fighting each other tooth and claw, slaughtering our rivals’ infants like lions –”

“Isn’t that what we do already?” Mitch took his glasses off and polished them on a rag. “At least with animals, everything they do is for one reason, and one reason alone. Survival. Can’t say that about the human race.”

Jamie looked at her hands, balled in her lap. He had her there.

“So you’re saying we shouldn’t interfere with what Amelia and Kazuko are doing.”

“I didn’t say that. I just think that if you want to go against them, you’d better have a damned good plan.”

*****

They tossed ideas around for hours, growing steadily more and more frustrated. They came up with plan after plan. Each was thrown out when they found a flaw, or a weakness. They couldn’t afford to have _any_ flaws. 

“Miss Tousignant?”

They stopped talking, guiltily aware that they hadn’t been paying as much attention as they should have been. Amelia Sage had approached their table, and was now watching them with undisguised amusement.

“Yes?”

“You may wish to waste your time plotting an impossibility. Or you might wish to see Doctor Morgan’s treatment at work.”

They exchanged startled, wary looks. “You can’t have it ready that quickly,” Mitch said.

“When your pockets are funded by the US Treasury, Doctor Morgan, anything is possible. Kazuko’s waiting.”

*****

Eyes closed, Jackson strained his senses. He couldn’t hear his people, or smell them (funny that he should still call them ‘his people’ when they’d turned their backs on him) but he’d spent the last few hours zeroing in on their thoughts. The ability was still rusty, but it was coming. 

He found he could hear Chloe’s thoughts the most clearly. Hardly surprising. He still loved her – at least he thought he did – but ‘love’ had become an abstract concept to him. Rather than knowing instinctively what it meant, he felt as if someone had explained it to him in broken English. 

So. Amelia had a store of Mitch’s treatment. He had plans for that treatment, and they didn’t involve being stuck here in Fort McNair. 

He knew Kazuko was going to be the first test subject. Maybe he could use that. The Army’s delivery system wasn’t quite the same as his; Mitch had injected his own stem cell/mother cell mix directly into his optic nerve, while Kazuko would have a foetal cell/mother cell mix injected into her blood stream. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought her connection to the animals wouldn’t be as strong as his. Nor as controlled.

He could _definitely_ use that.

Silently – urging them to be quiet, to stay out of sight – he called the animals to him.

*****

Mitch and the others stood in another room, almost a carbon copy of the one they’d watched Jackson from. This time the sound was turned on before they started.

Kazuko, wearing Army fatigues, sat on a gurney. There was a dog in the corner of the room, caged and barking. Kazuko’s first test – if she survived the process. 

“What kind of dog is that?” Jamie murmured, arms crossed.

“A big one.”

“I mean the breed.”

“What, you think because I bought my daughter a dog I know all about them?”

“You’re a _vet,_ Mitch.”

“Oh. Right. It’s a mutt.”

They watched as a doctor filled a syringe from a vial. The liquid within was dark gold – not quite the same shade as the treatment Mitch had made, but close. Kazuko held out her arm. With steady hands the doctor injected her.

“How long do you think this will take?” Chloe asked, shifting anxiously from foot to foot.

“Who knows? With Jackson I could tell immediately.”

Even before he’d moved, those changes had become apparent in the way he’d held himself. It was ten minutes before anyone noticed a change in Kazuko. Every minute the doctor asked her how she felt, whilst recording her vitals. Every minute her reply was the same – ‘I’m fine’ – ‘No change’ – ‘Still breathing, doc’. 

But then her posture stiffened. Still sat on the gurney, her back straightened; she raised her face, slowly sniffing the air. She focussed on the still-barking dog first, then looked sharply at the doctor. 

“Heightened sense of smell,” she said. “And doc, you’re not kidding anyone with that cologne. When your wife finds out you’re sleeping with her best friend, you’re a dead man.”

The doctor stumbled back, startled. Unease crawled across his face. The dog increased his barking.

“It’s started,” Mitch said.

“Way to go, Captain Obvious.” Jamie’s voice was sharp with anxiety.

“I hope we do not come to regret this course of action,” Abe said. “For her sake. For all our sakes.”

“You still care for her?” Chloe asked.

He shrugged. “I admire her still. What she is doing now, it is brave.”

“Or greedy,” Jamie added. “She’s seen what Jackson can do, and she wants a piece of the pie.”

“Ah, let me keep my rose-tinted glasses a little longer,” Abe sighed. 

“How do you feel?” the doctor asked, yet again.

Kazuko touched her fingers to her closed eyes, then opened them. She was smiling.

“Eyesight’s getting better. Didn’t even know that was possible. I’m already twenty/twenty.”

The doctor looked at her blood pressure readings. They were increasing rapidly. 

Kazuko looked at the dog. The mutt looked at her, still barking frantically. And then – abruptly – he fell silent.

“Good doggie,” Kazuko said. She giggled.

“Uh oh. I don’t like the sound of that,” Mitch said. And from the way the doctor scribbled on his clipboard, he didn’t, either. 

“What do you mean?” Chloe asked.

“That giggle? Didn’t sound too stable to me.”

“She’s just had an untested substance shot into her system, Mitch.”

“Jackson didn’t giggle.”

“Jackson is not a giggler.”

_“And_ he had a purer treatment.”

“Lieutenant Wilson, would you like me to let the dog out of his cage?” the doctor asked. He didn’t look confident as he said it, and every now and then he eyed the door. It was clear he didn’t want to be in that room.

Kazuko and the dog continued to stare at each other. The dog ducked its head, tail tucked firmly between its legs, and started to whine.

“She is establishing her dominance over him,” Abe said. “Incredible!”

“Creepy,” Jamie said.

The doctor unfastened the cage door. The dog didn’t move.

“Here, boy.” Kazuko held out her hand. The dog remained still.

“Hey, mutt!” A crease marred her face. “Get over here!”

Still the dog refused to move. His whines increased.

“He is fighting her.” Abe’s wonder had vanished, to be replaced by trepidation. “She is not fully in tune with him, as Jackson was with the wolves. She is trying to control him.”

“I said get your damned ass over here, fleabag!” Kazuko yelled, jumping lithely off the table. The dog squealed and tried to curl into a ball in the back of the cage. The doctor managed to slam the door shut and lock it before she made it across the room.

“Get back on the table, Lieutenant.” 

“Or what?” she yelled, stalking over to him. He shied away. “What’re you going to do to me, you weedy little runt?”

“Heightened aggression,” Abe said. “I have a bad feeling about this!”

The door to the holding cell banged open. Two burly soldiers rumbled in, bearing down on the diminutive woman. They pushed her into a corner – 

And then she was gone, wriggling past them. One of them just managed to grab her leg; she turned around and bit him. He howled and let her go. Blood trickling from her mouth, she sprinted out of the room.

*****

From his own holding cell nearby, Jackson smiled. He felt Kazuko’s shifting awareness, felt her unconscious understanding of her connection to the wider world grow – and grow – and then hit a brick wall.

_That’s what you get when you try to cut corners,_ he thought. Brushing his awareness across hers – softly, softly, so she wouldn’t feel it – he sensed her abilities would grow, as had his, but that process would take longer. And in Kazuko, at least, some part of the treatment had shifted the chemistry in her brain in just the wrong way. Part of her would remain unbalanced, and that shift was only going to get worse. 

One day – time and circumstances permitting – he might hunt her down. Animals turned on their sick brethren to maintain the health of the group, and she was definitely sick. She might not know it yet, but she’d figure it out. Eventually. And then he’d be there.

Right now, however, he had to get the rest of Amelia’s treatment out of Fort Kincaid. Kazuko had had a bad reaction, but who was to say it would be like that with everyone? He had the sense that the strong bond he’d already formed was partly down to his empathetic nature. He’d worked with animals, protected them where he could. What had Kazuko done? She was a soldier and when she had to, she killed people. 

He also had the sense that she enjoyed that killing, something she’d kept hidden even from herself.

He heard the commotion from her cell. Heard her scattered thoughts, and those of his former friends. And there it was… just what he was looking for. A distraction.

“Attack,” he whispered.

*****

The alarm went off. Chloe felt as if she was becoming desensitised to it. 

The door behind them was already closed. Now she made sure that it was locked. Desensitised she might be, incautious she was not.

“I _knew_ something was going to go wrong!” Jamie exclaimed. Mitch pulled her close to him. “We should have known better than to mess around with the mother cell!”

“Jackson thought it was a good idea.” Mitch tried to defend the concept, but Jamie was having none of it.

“Right, just like Hitler thought it was a good idea to invade Czechoslovakia!”

“Quiet, you two!” Chloe hissed. Her head was bent, ear pressed to the door. “Do you hear that?”

They fell silent, then paled as an animalistic roar echoed through the corridors outside. Chloe and Abe shared a single terrified look.

“Lion!” they said in unison.

“What?” Jamie shrank closer to Mitch. “There’s a _lion_ on a _military base?”_

_“Rafiki,”_ Abe growled. “I do not understand it, but I think he has somehow taken advantage of the chaos Kazuko is causing. I think he is trying to escape!”

“I – I have to go after him,” Chloe said, reaching for the door again.

“And do what?” Abe demanded. “Are you going to stop him from leaving – or help him?”

“I will decide when I get there!”

“What, are you nuts?” Jamie said. “You’re not going out there?”

Mitch let out a frustrated growl. “I am, too.”

“For _Jackson?”_

“For my daughter, Jamie. I have to make sure she’s protected.”

“Then I’m going with you,” she said. “Someone has to haul your ass out of danger.”

“Are you going to bring that up every time?”

“I didn’t mean literally…”

*****

Chloe and Abe scurried out of their protected room, peering around corners before they committed to any move. There were animals everywhere, though so far nothing had attacked them. The creatures hadn’t made any such distinctions for the soldiers.

“Jackson is controlling them,” Abe said. “He doesn’t want us to get hurt. Whatever changes have happened to him, my friend is still in there.”

“I _know_ he is still in there, somewhere,” Chloe replied. “I have to believe it. I must have something to cling to, or I feel I will go mad.”

They rounded another corner just in time to see Jackson entering a formerly security-controlled door. The power had gone down again. So much for Amelia’s extra reinforcements. 

“Jackson!” Chloe called. He ignored her, and as she raced to close the distance, two huge lions prowled out into the corridor. The message was clear – _don’t follow._

“What is he doing?” Abe asked, backing away from the lions. “Why has he gone into the laboratory rather than fleeing?” The lions didn’t attack – another sign that they were being controlled – but lay down in front of the door. One of them yawned, displaying huge teeth that could easily rip through a man’s flesh.

“Maybe he is after the mother cell,” Chloe speculated. There was a map of the compound on the wall beside her, and she started tracing her finger along the routes, trying to find an alternative way into the lab. 

“Could he… no, it is impossible.” Abe shook his head.

“What?”

“Could he be looking for Amelia’s modified treatment?”

“How could he even know of its existence?” Chloe replied. 

Ab shrugged. “Perhaps the same way that he knew the precise moment to take advantage of Amelia’s test with Kazuko.”

Chloe tapped the map. “Maybe. I do not pretend to understand what Jackson can do now. But if we cannot get into the lab, we will not be able to follow him. This way.”

*****

Jamie followed Mitch through the corridors, keeping an eye out for animals. The intrusion didn’t appear to have reached this section of Fort McNair – at least not yet – but Jamie knew Mitch wouldn’t rest until he’d seen Clementine with his own eyes. 

“Where have all the soldiers gone?” she asked.

“Don’t know, don’t care.” Mitch was characteristically short.

They had to leave the building and cross a yard to get to the civilian housing quarters. Mitch found the exit already open, the soldier supposedly guarding it nowhere to be seen.

“Alright,” he said, scanning the sky and the surrounding area, “if we run across the yard, we should be fine. Jackson might have sic’d the animals on us, but he didn’t let those wolves attack, did he?”

“We have no idea what Jackson’s thinking right now,” Jamie shot back. “And frankly, I’m more worried about Kazuko. We have no idea where she is or what she’s doing.”

“Escaping seems like a pretty good bet.”

“Well, yeah. But which way? She’s been around military bases before, she must know McNair like the back of her hand.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when – and if – we get to it,” Mitch said. “Come on. Coast is clear.”

Hand in hand they ran across the deserted yard, entering the civilian housing complex without mishap. Mitch led her to the one-story house Audra, Justin, Clem and Justin’s parents had been assigned, then banged on the door.

They heard the scrabble of a security chain, then the click of locks being opened. The door cracked open an inch, and Justin’s suspicious eye peered out.

“You guys OK in there?” Mitch said.

“What the hell’s happening?” Justin demanded.

“Who’s that?” Clem called from further in the house. “Is it Mitch? Let him in, Justin!”

“Why are you here?” Justin held the door firmly between them.

“Look, I just came to make sure my little girl is alright –”

“She’s fine,” Justin said.

“For God’s sake, Justin, let him in!” they heard Audra call.

A flock of birds wheeled into view overhead, their voices raising a cacophony. Mitch and Jamie flinched.

“I don’t think Jackson’s controlling these ones,” Jamie whispered. “They’re all over the place, look. There’s no co-ordination. It’s gotta be Kazuko.”

The front door was wrenched open. Audra had muscled past her husband, a frustrated scowl on her face, and now beckoned them inside. Mitch raced to his daughter and scooped her up; she hooked her legs around his waist and hugged him hard. Jamie followed him in. Audra closed the door behind her.

When Mitch finally put Clem down, the little girl turned toward Jamie. She was smiling shyly.

“Clem,” Mitch said, “This is not exactly how I wanted this to go down, but hey. I’d like to formally introduce you to Jamie Campbell. My girlfriend.”

*****

Chloe punched a wall in frustration. The laboratory was empty. Jackson was gone. 

“I don’t know how he did it!” she yelled, punching the wall again. _“How_ could he steal Amelia’s treatment and flee Fort McNair without being _caught?”_

She went to punch the wall again, fist already grazed and bleeding. Abe caught her wrist and stopped the movement.

“We may never know,” he said, “and hurting yourself will not bring him back, Chloe. With the power down we are unable to review the security footage. If he has the treatment, I do not know where he would go.”

Chloe slowly calmed down, letting the anger leach from her eyes.

“That – that does not matter,” she said eventually. “When he was unconscious, I asked one of the doctors to implant a tracker under his skin. We will find him, and then…”

“And then?”

“Honestly? I do not know.”


	13. When The Hill Becomes A Mountain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson seeks a place where he can go to ground and rest. Chloe and the team track him to a decommissioned petroleum plant, but he flees before they can find him. The team are unintentionally split; Chloe and Abe race after Jackson, leaving the slower Jamie and Mitch behind.  
> Kazuko, half-mad and also tracking Jackson, finds Mitch and Jamie first. Realising that Chloe will be faster without him, Abe circles back to take on Kazuko.  
> Alone, Chloe follows Jackson to a reservoir, working out what he intends to do with the treatment. Can she stop him before it’s too late?

Kazuko ran until her lungs burned. She understood how rabbits felt, when they were chased by the hounds – knowing something was on your tail, knowing death would come if you let your guard down.

But Kazuko was no rabbit, and the soldiers weren’t hounds. They might like to think they were. They certainly had teeth. But next to her they were all bark and no bite; if they tried to run _this_ little rabbit to ground, they’d find out that she had teeth, too. And unlike them, she _liked _to bite.__

__She’d fled Fort McNair with no clear idea of where she was going, or what she wanted to do. If that stupid doctor had asked her now how she felt, she would have grabbed his throat and crushed it. They thought they could contain her, control her. They hadn’t realised just how wrong they were._ _

__Her brain throbbed as it processed the new neural networks that were being laid down. They were connections, consciousness, understanding; an awareness of the animals around her._ _

__And with that awareness came knowledge. The animals were afraid of her. While fleeing the base she’d run into a lion – a huge male with a ruff so thick she’d never have been able to stretch her arms around it – and the creature had let out a roar like a cough and galloped away from her. Was it like this for Jackson Oz? When they’d caught him, he’d been running with a pack of wolves. Not from them – or they from him – but with them._ _

__They’d accepted him as one of their own. Their alpha. Her, they feared._ _

__The muscles in her legs were on fire, but she didn’t stop running. She had her second wind now. So far she and Jackson were the only two special people, the only two evolved. Every now and again she caught a whiff of him on the breeze, and a hint of something exotic and medicinal – Amelia’s treatment, if she guessed right. She didn’t know what he planned to do with it._ _

__But as she ran through the deserted city streets, the noise of pursuit still following, she finally decided what _she_ wanted to do. _ _

__She was special… but only if no one else evolved. Only if Jackson was out of the picture. And the treatment with him._ _

__*****_ _

__It was getting dark; Jackson needed rest. His stomach growled with hunger. He could live without food – for a while – and there was plenty of water where he planned to go. But the physical changes his body and brain had undergone, coupled with strenuous activity, had left him exhausted. He was almost running on empty. He needed to find somewhere to go to ground._ _

__Shielding his eyes from the dying sun, he peered into the distance. There was a big, sprawling complex on the horizon. Lots of buildings. Narrow chimneys and pipes climbed high into the sky. He could smell it, even from this distance. The reek of oil made his nose sting and blunted his sense of smell._ _

__If he went to ground there, he’d be taking a risk. It would make him nose-blind, maybe even hinder his hearing. But he’d be able to tuck himself away in a warm, dark corner somewhere. He’d feel protected, and know that if anyone did come at him unexpectedly, he could lose them in a maze of pipes and alleys. Then no one would catch him._ _

__When he finally reached the site, he found plenty of doors, but they were all padlocked. There was, however, a window several stories up that had been broken, either by the weather or a deliberate act of vandalism._ _

__Knowing that he didn’t have much energy left he planned the climb in detail before he made the ascent. He found toe and hand holds in the crumbling brickwork, utilising drooping sheets of corrugated iron, exhaust fans and pipes to get where he needed to go. Wrapping his fist in his dirty T-shirt he smashed the window further, creating a hole big enough to climb through, and leapt inside._ _

__*****_ _

__“I’m not sure it was a good idea to come here without military backup,” Abe said as he and Chloe climbed out of a Jeep._ _

__“It was an excellent idea.” Chloe’s face burned with determination. “Even with only the four of us, Jackson will be able to hear us coming. I have no doubt he will smell us, too. If it is only us, there is a chance he will stop. There is a chance he will talk.”_ _

__“If there’s soldiers, there’s no chance.” Behind them, Jamie nodded. “Makes sense, I guess. In as much as any of this crazy stuff makes sense.”_ _

__“You looked at me when you said that, Jamie.” Mitch gave her a sarcastic smile._ _

__“Oh, did I?” The smile she returned was sweet and just as sarcastic. “My bad…”_ _

__*****_ _

__After Jackson had fled, the main, co-ordinated attack on Fort Kincaid ended. But they’d still had to deal with sporadic, uncoordinated pockets of resistance from groups that only broke up and dissipated when the odds turned against them._ _

__Even though the scientists had lost both their test subjects, they were excited. They had preliminary test data. More than that – they were beginning to get a scope of what the treatment could do. Jackson – with his background in animal protection, his evolution sparked using his own stem cells – seemed to have a natural, empathetic connection to the animals. The soldier Kazuko, whose treatment had not been tailored specifically to her, tried to dominate the animals. Her mental distress, her lack of equilibrium, had bled back into the wildlife, leading to these unregulated attacks. They broke apart and fell away the further Kazuko fled from Fort McNair._ _

__This suited Mitch just fine. He’d refused to leave his daughter until the base was secure again. Then they’d followed Jackson’s implanted tracker to an industrial estate, and right now Chloe’s handheld tracking unit was telling them that he’d gone into an old petroleum processing plant that was in the middle of being decommissioned._ _

__“You sure he went in there?” Jamie asked as they approached the entrance. The failing light made it hard to see where she was putting her feet. “This place gives me the creeps.”_ _

__“I thought nothing could frighten you.” Chloe was amused. “You survived a plane crash and multiple animal attacks. You rescued your man from the big bad wolf.”_ _

__“I think we’re being teased,” Mitch said. “Cute.”_ _

__“It’s nothing really,” Jamie explained. “Well, mostly nothing. It’s just all these pipes.”_ _

__“You have a phobia?” Chloe’s expression softened._ _

__“Not… exactly. Well, alright, that’s a lie. I hate them.”_ _

__“What happened to give you this phobia?”_ _

__“Nothing. It was nothing.”_ _

__“Come on, Jamie.” Mitch joshed her lightly on the arm. “No more secrets, right?”_ _

__She shot him a look. “I hate you.”_ _

__He smirked._ _

__“Alright,” Jamie said. “When I was a kid – I don’t know, maybe eight or nine – I used to hang with my cousins all the time. We had bikes and by God, we used them – felt like we cycled over the whole tri-state area.” Her expression gradually tightened. “Anyway, we were exploring an old abandoned warehouse. I never knew what had been there before, but they’d left all these pipes behind. Like… drainage pipes or something. We started playing inside them.”_ _

__They reached an entrance as Jamie talked. Abe rattled the padlocked chain that held it closed, then removed a bolt-cutter from his bag._ _

__“There was this whole bunch arranged in a pile, like thirty feet high,” Jamie continued. “My cousins were chicken and only climbed up about ten feet. Me, I was the girl, I was small and light. I went right to the top.”_ _

__Abe set the bolt cutters to the chain and snapped them closed. The chain broke apart, dropping the chain and padlock to the gravel below. He slid the door open. It moved smoothly._ _

__“So I got to the top and it was _really_ high, but I didn’t care ‘cause I’d got one over on the boys. I climbed inside the highest pipe and pretended it was my castle. I was having fun, right up to the point where the castle came tumbling down.”_ _

__“Good God, Jamie!” Mitch exclaimed. “You could have been killed!”_ _

__“Almost was.” She shrugged. “Broke a whole bunch of bones and knocked myself out. Scared the crap outta my cousins.”_ _

__Chloe peered into the darkened interior. “Well, if you avoid climbing in any pipes, you should be fine. Follow me.”_ _

__*****_ _

__Kazuko finally slowed to a stop outside the plant, and waited while she caught her breath. She felt as if she could run all day. She’d left her pursuers behind, losing them in the city streets of D.C before hitting the ‘burbs and beyond._ _

__Jackson was here. She could smell him, despite the petroleum stink. His scent had changed – he’d come here to rest, to nest and catch some sleep in a dark hole before continuing his journey. He must be tired. How long since he’d eaten? How long since he’d slept?_ _

__The others were here, too. Abe, and Jackson’s female. The annoying vet and his mouthy mate. They were here to find Jackson, too, but Kazuko knew she’d find him long before they did – even now she could hear them stumbling around, their weak human eyes straining in the darkness. She doubted they’d thought to bring flashlights, though maybe they’d have an app on their phones. _She_ didn’t need any of that._ _

__As she entered the factory, another smell hit her nose – fear. One of them, the mouthy journalist, was afraid, deeply so. The scent unlocked something primal in her brain, something that her shifted biology had allowed to come to the fore._ _

__The female was afraid. Therefore the female was prey._ _

__And what did you do with prey?_ _

__You hunted it, of course._ _

__*****_ _

__“God, why would Jackson even come to a place like this?” Jamie asked. If she’d thought it was dark outside, it was black as hell in here. She wished they had a flashlight – just one would do – but they’d had no idea they’d be exploring in the darkness. They had two cell phone flashlights between them, Chloe’s and Jamie’s. Abe had lost his – he only had a cheap burner anyway – and Mitch had left his behind, though he ‘couldn’t recall where’. In other words, as Jamie had teased him, he’d lost it._ _

__“I do not know why Jackson does anything anymore,” Abe sighed. “I used to know him so well, as he knew me. Now? How much of the man I once knew is still there?”_ _

__“All of it,” Chloe snapped. “He is still the man he was before. Whatever happens, we must never forget that.”_ _

__“Here’s a thought,” Mitch said as they crept between the massive, hulking corpses of decommissioned equipment. He held Jamie’s phone high, sweeping the beam over the concrete floor in front of them. “The mother cell sped up the natural evolution process in animals, right?”_ _

__“That is what we believe,” Chloe agreed._ _

__“And it sped it up for Jackson. And Kazuko too, I guess, though I’m not sure she’s come through the change with everything intact.” He tapped the side of his skull. “Right now, Jackson is what the human race is _supposed_ to be.”_ _

__“That’s a scary thought,” Jamie said. “He’s gone pretty much full Tarzan. Isn’t the human race meant to be above all of that? You know, higher thinking and all that crap?”_ _

__“This way.” Chloe, glancing at the tracker’s monitor, tugged Jamie’s sleeve to lead her in a new direction. The others followed._ _

__“Who says animals can’t have higher thought processes?” Mitch said. “Chimps and other great apes can use simple tools. Corvids, octopuses, hell, even dogs have been shown to use tools and solve problems.”_ _

__“But what about culture, what about art?”_ _

__“Elephants have been taught to paint. And as for culture, how do we know animals don’t have their own culture? We know they’re able to communicate with each other. Body language, pheromones – that’s still a language. Who knows, they might have their own version of oral traditions, handed down from mother to cub or – egg – or – you know what I mean.”_ _

__“You have an answer for every damned thing, don’t you?”_ _

__“Frankly? Yes. It’s why you love me, right?”_ _

__“Love you, yeah…” Jamie blew a strand of hair out of her face._ _

__*****_ _

__When Jackson came awake, it was completely and fully, with none of the yawning and stretching normal humans indulged in. His eyes snapped open in the darkness, his senses – his enhanced fight-or-flight response – already primed by the scents wafting to his nose._ _

__Chloe. Chloe was here. He had no idea how she’d found him; she couldn’t track worth a damn, and besides, part of his journey had been through the concrete jungle. He hadn’t left any footprints to follow. Another tracker in his clothes, maybe? But no – when he pawed through the material, he found nothing unusual._ _

__That left only one option. He had a tracker inside him._ _

__He’d acquired plenty of scrapes and cuts since being captured. The docs could have implanted a tracker into any one of those, and he wouldn’t know. He needed to search himself thoroughly and get rid of it – but now was not the time. Now was the time for slinking out, quiet as a mouse, before he was discovered._ _

__He uncoiled from his sleeping position, grabbed the sealed flask of treatment and rose in one smooth, fluid movement. Chloe and – yes, the others, he could smell them now too – were close, but not so close they’d get in his way. There were multiple exits from his bolthole. He picked one at random and left._ _

__*****_ _

__“Mitch, I don’t like this.”_ _

__Jamie had her cell phone in one hand, and held Mitch’s arm in a death-grip with the other. Chloe and Abe had pulled ahead of them, Chloe’s need to catch up with Jackson driving her on. Though Jackson was her friend, she still wasn’t sure they should be going after him when he was so determined to get away. Plus, it was darker than the inside of her closet in here. She wasn’t afraid, but…_ _

__She so was. She was freaking terrified._ _

__“Well,” Mitch said, “it’s not like some ravening beast is gonna jump out and… no wait, that’s probably gonna happen.”_ _

__“Need to work on that sense of humour. Hey, where did Chloe and Abe go?”_ _

__While they’d been talking, the other two had drawn so far ahead that Chloe’s small circle of light had vanished._ _

__“Chloe?” Mitch called, voice echoing among the towering metal landscape. “Abe? Hey, man, you there?”_ _

__Silence. “Great. They left us behind. Guess that makes us the ‘B’ team.”_ _

__“You made the vaccine! And I… offered moral support,” Jamie added. “That totally makes us the ‘A’ team –”_ _

__Something cannoned into Jamie, ripping her away from Mitch. She went down hard._ _

__*****_ _

__Chloe realised that she’d left Mitch and Jamie behind, and she knew she should feel bad about that, but the hand-held tracker told her Jackson was close._ _

__“You’re not leaving _me_ behind,” Abe rumbled, catching her arm. “Slow down. You know this is probably a wild goose chase, don’t you?”_ _

__“What do you mean?”_ _

__“Jackson has done nothing but run since he changed. That boy does not do anything without a purpose. So why is he running?”_ _

__“Because he wants to get away from the scientists, from the tests!”_ _

__“That is part of the reason, but not all. He has the treatment, Chloe. We should be asking ourselves what he intends to do with it.”_ _

__“For all we know he plans to destroy it.”_ _

__“What would be the point? Amelia and her team would just make more. No, he has a plan… I just wish I knew what it was!”_ _

__“He is moving!” Chloe jabbed an excited finger at the tracker’s screen. “He is…” She muttered something dark in French. “He is _leaving!”__ _

__“Call the others,” Abe demanded, “tell them to meet us by the Jeep.”_ _

__Chloe fumbled with her phone, the narrow beam of illumination from the flashlight app wavering back and forth. She hit the speed dial and held the phone to her ear._ _

__“There is no answer,” she said. She stopped, clearly torn – chase the man she loved, or find her friends?_ _

__“Go after him,” Abe said, taking the decision away from her. “Go! I will find the others.”_ _

__“But the dark…”_ _

__“They will be blundering about like tourists through the savannah,” he said. “I will hear them. Now go!”_ _

__Chloe nodded and ran._ _

__*****_ _

__Jamie felt as if she’d been run over by a Mack truck. Her cell went flying; it cracked against the ground, but didn’t break. The world shifted sideways. Before it could right itself she felt a hand in her hair. She was yanked roughly to her feet._ _

__“Get up, little rabbit.”_ _

__Oh God, it was Kazuko. How had she found them?_ _

__“I’m not a – goddamned – rabbit,” she gasped._ _

__Mitch, face twisted with rage, threw a wild punch. Kazuko swayed out of the way, dragging Jamie with her. In the weak light thrown by the cell phone, his expression was hellish._ _

__“You’re pathetic,” Kazuko spat. “Weak, both of you. Nature’s all about survival of the fittest, right?”_ _

__Jamie rammed her elbow into Kazuko’s stomach. The woman grunted with pain but didn’t let her go; Jamie, who’d rough-housed with plenty of boys when she’d been a kid, followed it up with a harder elbow-jab and a stamp on the foot. Then she sank her nails into Kazuko’s wrists._ _

__Mitch, fear twisting his features into a hard mask, took another swing at the soldier. This time it hit. Kazuko’s head rocked back, his blow opening a gash on her lip. He yelped and shook his fist, wincing._ _

__“Cute!” Kazuko said. “Guy’s got balls!”_ _

__“So have I,” Jamie said, setting her feet flat against the floor and pushing back with all her strength. The woman hadn’t been expecting the move and overbalanced; they toppled over, landing hard on the concrete. The fall broke Kazuko’s grip. Jamie rolled away and scrabbled upright, darting over to Mitch._ _

__“Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “You’re supposed to be one of the good guys!”_ _

__“There are no good guys in nature.” Kazuko was calm as she stalked around them, arms held loosely at her sides. Each movement was fluid. “The only constant is the struggle for survival. The hunter and her prey.”_ _

__“Don’t give me that crap,” Mitch spat. He’d snatched up the phone and now held it in front of him as if the narrow beam of light was a shield. “You’re a human being, just like the rest of us.”_ _

__“Wrong! I’m evolved, just like the animals! Just like Jackson!”_ _

__“Jackson’s the real deal, he’s what we’re supposed to be,” Mitch spat. “You? You’re just a freak –”_ _

__Kazuko let out a feral shriek of rage and rushed him, arms pumping as she closed the distance between them. The only expression left on her face was murder._ _

__*****_ _

__Chloe sped after Jackson, following the tracker through the sprawling complex. He was definitely leaving. She cursed and took a detour, knowing that she’d have to get back to the Jeep in order to keep up with him. She had another moment’s guilt – she was leaving the others behind – but this was more important. She _had_ to know where Jackson was going. She _had_ to know what he was doing. _ _

__“What the…?” She tapped the tracker’s screen. He was heading in the _opposite_ direction, going back the way they’d come. Back toward D.C. Why the hell would he do that?_ _

__Keeping one hand on the wheel, she dropped her cell phone into a slot on the dash and tapped at the screen, calling up Google Maps. She dragged her finger over the map, projecting Jackson’s future path. If he maintained his current direction, he would end up in…_ _

__Oh God. No. Everything suddenly fell into place in her head. She understood what Jackson was thinking, what his plan was, what he intended to do._ _

__If he kept going on his current course he’d hit McMillan Reservoir, a big body of water that fed D.C and the surrounding areas._ _

__He was going to dump Amelia’s treatment and change a whole city._ _

__*****_ _

__Mitch shoved Jamie behind him in an instinctive reaction to danger. He was bigger than Kazuko, sure, maybe stronger, but she was a _soldier,_ dammit, trained to kill. He might last a whole five seconds – _ _

__Abe exploded out of the darkness and grabbed Kazuko around the waist. With a yell of effort he hauled her high into the air._ _

__“Run!” he grunted. “Back to the Jeep!”_ _

__Mitch didn’t need telling twice. He seized Jamie’s hand and ran, dragging her away from the fight._ _

__“We can’t just leave him!” Jamie shouted, trying to run and look over her shoulder at the same time. She tripped over her own feet; Mitch yanked her upright._ _

__“The man’s a walking mountain,” he panted. “And you told me he used to be a soldier. If anyone can take her down it’s him!”_ _

__*****_ _

__Kazuko’s fingers found the tender parts of his hands, digging into the tendons with enough pressure to make Abe’s hold loosen. It wasn’t much – but it was enough. She wriggled free and bounded back toward him like a crazed ferret._ _

__They were in darkness know, the light gone with Mitch and Jamie. Abe couldn’t see Kazuko come at him, but years spent with the rebel army, and more years spent living close to nature, had honed his senses. He felt the rush of air as she charged._ _

__He held his hand out, palm outwards. Kazuko stopped a hair’s breadth away from it, all her senses on overdrive. She barrelled into him and they went down._ _

__She scrambled on top of him and started punching him in the face, a rain of blows that were all fury and no co-ordination. Abe grabbed her wrists, holding her easily away from him._ _

__“You’ve lost your edge,” he rumbled, still holding her away from him. “Rage has made you foolhardy.”_ _

__“I’m going to claw your throat out and feast on your blood!” she screamed._ _

__Abe rolled to his feet, dragging her with him. She tangled her boots in his legs and tried to trip him, but he was expecting the move and stayed upright._ _

__“It gives me no pleasure to do this,” he said, folding her into a bear-hug. “I thought that you and I had something, a connection, but you were just using me for my reputation.”_ _

__His arms tightened. Kazuko, her hands trapped against her sides, let out a terrible noise – part squeal, part scream – as she tried to draw air into her lungs._ _

__“A lesser man might kill you,” Abe continued. “I am not a lesser man.”_ _

__He squeezed harder, using carefully controlled force to constrict her breathing. Too little and she would wriggle away again; too much, and he might kill her._ _

__He heard something crack – her ribs. She screamed and slumped, passing out in his arms._ _

__“That does not mean I will not hurt you, though.”_ _

__He manoeuvred Kazuko until he carried her in his arms, careful not to jostle her. He didn’t want to hurt her any more than he already had. Then he began the long process of retracing his steps back toward the Jeep._ _

__*****_ _

__Chloe was in a vehicle, and Jackson was on foot; she _had_ to get to McMillan Reservoir before him. Right? He might have hotwired a car, but she had to hold on to the belief that, because he was thinking more like an animal than a human, he would stick to his own two feet._ _

__She dialled Jamie’s cell as she drove._ _

__“Chloe, where are you?” the journalist demanded when the call connected. “Are you OK?”_ _

__“I’m fine, I’m on the road,” she said. “I’m sorry I took the Jeep, but I could not risk losing Jackson –”_ _

__“Don’t worry it,” Jamie replied. “I called McNair, we’re being picked up soon. We have Kazuko.”_ _

__Chloe still had some compassion for the woman – she’d liked her, had thought she’d made Abe happy. It irked her that she hadn’t seen Kazuko’s real face; part of Chloe’s job had been to analyse people, and she’d missed something key about her personality._ _

__And it hadn’t been the first time. She’d missed it with Jean-Michel. Missed it with Natalie…_ _

__But now wasn’t the time for self-recriminations and doubts._ _

__“Is she OK?” she asked._ _

__“‘OK’ is open to interpretation right now. She, uh, Abe kinda… squashed her.”_ _

__“He _what?”__ _

__“Got her in a bear hug and squeezed.”_ _

__Chloe let out a surprised huff. “Remind me not to get on his bad side! Look, Jackson is headed to McMillan Reservoir. Can you call Amelia and tell her I’m on my way?”_ _

__“Sure. Look, Chloe, be careful.”_ _

__“I will.”_ _

__*****_ _

__Chloe drove into a parking lot. As expected she’d got there before Jackson, which gave her time to try to work out which way he’d go when he got here. The reservoir was huge, with buildings dotted on either side. A barely-full moon illuminated the bulk of the filtration plant in the distance._ _

__Thinking about what she knew of Jackson, his behaviour both before and after the change, she decided he would try for the most direct route to the water. He’d been on the run for hours; he would be tired, probably hungry and thirsty, maybe scared. He would dump the treatment, find food and drink, and go to ground._ _

__Using her cell as a flashlight again, she left the Jeep behind and headed off toward the water, looking for a place where she could wait in concealment. She kept an eye on the tracker. He was close, and getting closer by the minute._ _

__*****_ _

__Jackson could smell the reservoir now. It made his mouth water; he was thirsty as hell, had been for hours, and knew he couldn’t go on much longer._ _

__The reservoir would be a good place to rest. Water aplenty, lots of small game, and shelter._ _

__The wind shifted. He stopped for a few minutes, analysing the smells, working out whether he was in danger. The smell of water was almost overpowering, but beneath that…_ _

__Chloe. Chloe was here! Part of him was furious that she’d followed him yet again; a deeper part – buried beneath the buzz of sensory information his brain was learning how to process – was relieved. If she was here it meant she was safe, she wasn’t injured… and he could see her again._ _

__He followed his nose to the water’s edge. As he approached, her scent grew stronger; just as he tried to work out where she was, she stepped out of a stand of bushes. Her stance was aggressive, controlled, and she held a tranq gun in both hands. Trained on his chest._ _

__“Put the treatment down, Jackson.”_ _

__“Go home, Chloe! You shouldn’t be here!”_ _

__“This… this is my fault, I admit that!” He heard a sob in her voice. The clouds parted, allowing a shaft of silvered moonlight to fall on her. With his enhanced eyesight he saw moisture gather in her eyes. “If I had not made such a terrible mistake with Jean-Michel… if I had not driven you away…”_ _

__“Chloe, this isn’t your fault.” How strange it was to hold such a human conversation like this, when he was so in tune with the nightlife all around. He sensed a flock of deer in the distance, and birds roosting for the night. “ _I_ chose to do this, to take this step. You didn’t drive me away. In a way, I guess you did me a favour.”_ _

__“I – I do not understand…”_ _

__What was even stranger was how much it hurt to talk like this. A human ache, deep in his chest. His heart._ _

__But animals could love. Not all of them, but enough. Plenty of species chose their mate and stayed with them for life. Just like humans._ _

__The feeling that love was a distant, barely realised concept left him. He understood it again, understood it as he had understood it before. It reinforced his belief that fundamentally, all life was connected._ _

__“I was gonna ask you to marry me back in Paris,” he explained. “Before we visited your sister. The city of love, right? I thought… why not? But I never got the chance.”_ _

__Chloe took one hand off the tranq gun to wipe at her eyes. Funny, his own eyes were starting to feel damp._ _

__“Then all that crap with Jean-Michel got in the way,” he continued. “And you _wouldn’t_ marry me. I think… I think it was better that way.”_ _

__Chloe let out a choked sob. “You said you loved me! Was that a lie?”_ _

__“No. Never. Not then, not now. But Chloe, if we’d been married when this happened…” He shook the jar of treatment. Amber-gold liquid sloshed from side to side. “I’m still getting used to what’s happening to me, and if I’d left you after we were married I think… I think it would have killed me.”_ _

__“Come home, Jackson.” Chloe’s voice was raw, infused with emotion. “Please, come home with me. We can work things out…”_ _

__“Home? What’s home? An Army base?” He shook his head, derisive. “If you’re a goat, you don’t raise your kids in the lion’s den.”_ _

__“Is that – is that how you see yourself?” She laughed, a weak, watery thing that surprised him as much as it appeared to surprise her. “A goat?”_ _

__“Me? Nope. When all’s said and done, I’m just a guy.”_ _

__“Just a guy who’s about to get shot,” she said. “I do not want to do this, but…”_ _

__“Bet I can move faster than you can shoot.”_ _

__“I would not put money on that.”_ _

__“Money doesn’t mean anything to me anymo –”_ _

__Chloe squeezed the trigger. A dart flew out. Jackson was moving before her finger finished squeezing, and the dart flew wide. He turned and ran down to the water._ _

__*****_ _

__Jackson ran as if the hounds were after him. Another dart flew past him, inches away, and he veered in a different direction. The water was so close now, he could almost taste it –_ _

__Chloe leapt, her arms closing around him. They went down in a tangle of limbs, the tranquiliser gun spinning away into the darkness._ _

__Jackson was already scrabbling upright when Chloe tripped him. He stumbled but kept his footing. Then he was off again. He heard her follow, but she was slow, so slow._ _

__The water called to him. He was almost there – just feet away – when a sharp prick made him slap a hand to his neck. Dammit! Chloe had not only found the tranq gun in the moonlight, she’d aimed at and shot a moving target._ _

__As he dropped the dart he felt the drug coursing through his bloodstream, burning like fire. Terrible lethargy rampaged through his system._ _

__Knowing he only had seconds before he dropped, he smashed the flask open on a nearby rock and sent it hurling overheard. The flask tumbled end over end, the dark golden liquid within glowing in the moonlight._ _

___“No!”_ Chloe screamed._ _

__But she was too late. The broken flask hit the water. The treatment oozed out, diffusing into the reservoir. Jackson toppled over._ _

__“Let them try to filter _that_ stuff out.” _Job done,_ he thought as his vision began to constrict._ _

__“Jackson…” Chloe knelt beside him, smoothing his hair back from his sweaty forehead. “What happens next?”_ _

__“We’re about to find out.”_ _

__

__THE END_ _


End file.
